Who I Was and What I Became
by UndiscoveredSpecies
Summary: Rescued from a hellish orphanage by a mysterious man, a teenage boy is handed over to Slade as his new apprentice. Now called Trigger, he begins to enjoy crime life until kidnapped by the Titans. They force Trigger to confront the reality of his master's sinister nature and to make a choice: stay loyal to the man who saved his life or become something he never imagined he could be.
1. Chapter 1

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay! Listen up, my lovely readers. Within the first hour of this being posted I have received about five different messages informing me about how I am incorrectly writing the Mistress's character, and how readers do not like some of her actions/statements. While I do appreciate the information people have messaged me about the comics, other villains and their personalities, here is my reply.**

 _ **I have written things this way for a reason. The Mistress's personality, words, and actions are deliberate. It will tie into Trigger's decisions, motivations, and choices that come later on in the story. Trigger's treatment by the guards is also done on purpose. Again, I have plans. Yes, I understand that to people who do not know what will happen, this may appear weird/absurd/etc. But again, I have reasons. You, dear readers, will have to be patient and just see what those reasons are.**_

 **Sincerely,**

 **UndiscoveredSpecies**

The tall gray stone of the orphanage loomed against the slate-colored sky like a heavy, blocky tombstone; the image wasn't helped by the foreboding wrought-iron gates that stood stiff and straight as soldiers, blocking off the winding road that sloped gradually up to the doors. The whole place had the heavy reek of misery, and the scrawny teenager in the backseat of the black car screwed up his nose in disgust.

"Mistress won't be happy with you." The irritating and nasal voice of the man in the front seat broke through his thoughts with all the warmth and love of a lethal injection. "Mistress has no patience for ungrateful brats who run away from her care."

"Ungrateful brats have no patience for a woman with a fire-poker up her ass," the boy retorted waspishly. A sudden flash of movement was accompanied by an explosion of pain in his cheek as the guard on his left side slapped him hard across the face. He couldn't tell if the man, built like a sturdy ocean liner, was looking at him at all; the mirrored sunglasses that covered nearly half his face gave nothing away about the eyes underneath.

"Careful, now, or Mistress might just cut out that tongue." Through the rearview mirror, the boy caught a glance of the driver's eyes on his face and scowled at him. The edges of the eyes crinkled up with a humorless smile. "It's no wonder that nobody wants to adopt you," the driver commented.

The boy looked away angrily, clenching his jaw and hands in an effort to hide how the cruel remark hurt. For all the sting that the words held, it was the honest pain that came when truth was spoken. Nobody wanted him, not even his own parents. He had been dumped on the step in the rain and watched miserably as his mother and father drove away, tires squelching wetly in the mud. His face throbbed from the slap and the skin of his wrists were chafed by the handcuffs he wore. He had executed his latest runaway attempt four days ago, having decided that slowly starving under the uncaring eye of the Mistress was worse than anything that could happen to him on the streets. Three days and nights of dumpster-diving later, he had been picked up by the police for 'suspicious activity' and returned to the custody of the bastards at the Transformation Orphan Institute (T.O.I. for short).

The car purred smoothly to a halt outside the blood-red double-doors of the entrance and the boy resigned himself to his fate as the backseat's door was opened and another mammoth man took him roughly by the upper arm, hauling him out. The guard who had slapped him put a ham-sized hand on his shoulder, gripping harder than necessary as he led his quarry to the chipped stone steps. The boy could feel every pebble beneath the paper-thin soles of his shoes as he made his glum ascent. His stomach growled loudly.

"Maybe Mistress will show the brat mercy and feed him if he asks nicely," the driver commented with cheerful malice, his cold eyes gleaming. "Maybe she'll let him drink the dishwater again."

It took every ounce of self-control the boy had not to throw himself at the nasal-voiced driver and curb-stomp his weaselly smirk in, his inner anger bubbling dangerously close to boiling point. But he knew that if he attacked, the guards would deal back his violence ten-fold and give him much more than a slap to the face. He would have to bide his time...maybe he could find a mousetrap and put it in his shoe later on, or even better, slide it into his back pocket so that when he sat down...He ducked his head quickly to hide the wistful smile that lifted the corners of his mouth.

He was led inside and into a parlor decorated in hideous shades of moldy-cheese green and the sickening red-brown of dried blood. The guards pushed him into an under stuffed armchair and the boy winced as part of the splintered frame stabbed into the back of his thigh.

"Wait here while I fetch Mistress," Weasel the driver sneered, as if the boy had any other option with a hulking guard standing on either side. He made a face at the scrawny man's retreating back and hunched his shoulders forward in an angry sulk.

"Shouldn't have run," one of the guards said to him in an undertone.

The boy looked up, surprised to hear him talk. "What else was I supposed to do? Stay here until I rot?"

"That's one option," commented the guard that had slapped him.

"Real motivating," the boy snapped back. "And why do you two work here? Did you sign some sort of deal with the devil that says you have to work for Queen Frigid and beat up children?"

"Keep running your mouth and you'll get a knuckle sandwich to eat instead of dishwater," the guard growled, clenching his meaty hands.

The boy scowled and didn't reply. He ground his teeth together in contempt as the Mistress walked in, followed by Weasel. Mistress was a tall woman who was all angles and no curves, with a ramrod-straight spine and steel gray hair pulled back into so tight a bun that it was more a facelift-providing helmet than a style. She wore a wedding ring, but the boy couldn't imagine anyone wanting to wed her chilly demeanor and infuriating arrogance. He had never seen a spouse, now that he thought of it...maybe she had poisoned him for life insurance money.

"So." She folded her arms over her chest, the outline of her bra (so pointy that it would probably impale someone if she hugged them) showing through the lacy red and gray dress she wore. "You decided to run away again. This makes...eleven attempts in the fourteen years you've been with us?"

"Thirteen," the boy muttered.

"I see." She held out a hand and a practically drooling Weasel handed her a clipboard. She removed a pen from behind her ear and made a note, taking a measured step closer. "And what, exactly, did you hope to accomplish upon running away from our Institute?"

"Do you want to go through the same motions?" The boy asked, raising an eyebrow. "I ran away because I hate it here. I hate it here because...gee, let me list the reasons. Beatings. Lack of food. Seven kids sharing a two-person room, and that's considered the Luxury Suite. Your pea-brained lackeys who get off on smacking children around?" He tilted his head coldly toward the glaring men on either side of him.

"Not too rough, were you?" The Mistress raised her eyebrows.

"Just a little light thrashing," the one on the left said.

Mistress reached out and grabbed the boy by the chin, pulling his head up with surprising force for an old lady. The boy bared his teeth and jerked away, but not before she had gotten a good look at the ugly bruise forming on his cheek. "Hm. Be harsher next time. He doesn't seem to have learned his lesson," she sniffed, wiping her hand on her dress. "Solitary confinement. Three month term."

The boy was lifted out of the chair and off his feet as the guards seized him by the upper arms and dragged him out of the room. "Get off me! Let me go!"

His protests, as per usual, fell upon uncaring ears as he was towed down a set of uncarpeted stairs and into the basement—dungeon was a better word, really—and down the hallway that he knew better than any other inhabitant at the T. O. I. Still handcuffed, the boy was tossed unceremoniously into a tiny room no bigger than a broom closet, landing hard on one side. The door clanged shut with cold finality and he was left alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

It had been three hours since he had been thrown into the tiny solitary-confinement room like a rag doll, and the boy had since gotten the handcuffs off, thanks to a belt he had found in a dumpster on his second day of freedom. He had managed to undo his belt and take the tiny prong from the buckle and use it to pick the lock. _Should have known I'd know how to get out of these by now,_ Mistress, the boy thought sourly. _Thirteen escape attempts means that I am perfectly knowledgeable about most of your tricks...I only wish that I'd dared escape sooner..._

His wrists were sore and he massaged them gently, biting his lip as he carefully checked the chafed skin for injuries or blood. Finding none, he tucked the handcuffs into the pocket of his gray hoodie and retracted his arms back into his sleeves, closing his eyes and leaning against the wall to think. Solitary confinement was one of the best places to be when living at the Transformation Orphan Institute. Why? It was _solitary._ No screeching, annoying children clamoring over each other and begging for food. No Mistress squawking orders and demands. No guards to smack him around or shake him back and forth like a dog with a brand new chew-toy. It was _quiet,_ and silence was the boy's one true love.

He went through his former escape plans and executions, tallying up what had worked several times over and what hadn't. Invariably his capture always came down to his age; the police were always suspicious of a teenager living on the streets, or wandering around when other youths were in school. The boy had tried to sneak into schools as well or disappear from eight to three in the afternoon, but every time he had always been caught...Perhaps it was because he had tried to escape so often. The police knew him too well.

A rattle sounded from the other side of the room and the boy looked over to see a hand push a small plastic bowl through the little cat-flap at the bottom of the door. He waited until he heard footsteps retreat down the hall and clump up the stairs before shifting over to the bowl and looking down into it. Turbid, nearly-opaque water dotted with soap bubbles in the ironic shape of a smiley face stared back up at him. Filled with a sudden rage, the boy grabbed the bowl and hurled it at the wall with a violent burst of swearing, sending the dirty dishwater slopping over the grimy off-white paint. How dare people treat him like this! He was not some animal to be kept in minimal condition until the time was right for slaughter! He stood up in rage and punched the door once, twice, three times, ignoring the pain that stabbed up through his knuckles, wrist, and forearm with each ferocious strike. He was angry at everything and everyone in the world; he had been for a long, long time. He hated the Mistress and her guards more than anything—they were at the top of his _People I Wish Were Dead_ list. Next came Weasel (real name long forgotten) and his stupid, simpering face, and the way he trotted after the Mistress like a dog. Following Weasel were the boy's hardhearted, uncaring parents. Their icy hearts would hopefully be warmed by the depth of hell they were sent to when they died! How could they possibly think that dropping their son off on the front steps of the Transformation Orphan Institute was a good idea? Leaving a toddler standing in front of the blood-red double-doors to knock all by himself and stammer out that his parents were gone? The boy punched the wall again, baring his teeth in fury. Gradually his blows became weaker and weaker as anger mingled with deep loneliness, a dark swirling cocktail of miserable wistfulness as he let his forehead rest against the cold wall, now streaked with his own blood.

All he wanted was a friend. His strongest desire was someone to talk to, who would care if he lived or died.

The boy sighed and sat down again, wrapping his knuckles in the too-long sleeves of his gray hoodie, the hems of which were already stained with blood and grime. People wouldn't adopt him and rescue him because he was too angry, but the more he was denied salvation, the angrier he became. It was a vicious cycle, one that he didn't see any possibility of breaking.

He had to break it himself.

The boy bent forward until he was able to flip himself upside down, his legs leaning against the wall, balancing on his hands. He had to become stronger. Stronger, until he could fight off the guards who tried to hurt him, beat away the police who always threw him from the frying pan into the fire. He had to train the weakness away. Nobody was going to save him...nobody except himself.

Two days had passed since the boy had been put into solitary confinement, and by the end of that time, he was so sore that he could hardly walk. He had been using the wall to lean up against as he stood on his hands until his muscles gave out beneath him, trying to make his arms as strong as his legs. Now, however, he hurt so badly that he doubted he could lift a dry sponge.

He heard the heavy footsteps of a guard walking down the hallway and pulled the handcuffs from his pocket, clicking them back into place around his wrists just in time. The door swung open and the boy blinked in surprise; this guard was a woman. He had no idea that the Mistress had accepted anyone other than seven foot tall titanium-boned Neanderthals to do her bidding...

"There's a man here to see you," she said shortly, her voice low and husky. The boy blinked in surprise, at a total loss for words. A man? Here? For him? "Get up."

Slowly, he got to his feet and allowed her to take him by the upper arm (wincing in pain as she did so) and pull him from the room. He had since learned that it was a bad idea to even act like he knew where he was going; some guards viewed that as insubordination, as stupid as it was. "Who is this man?" He asked, too stunned to include a snarky comment.

"Didn't ask," the woman replied, not looking at him. "But oddly enough, he asked for you specifically."

"Wh-what?"

"Don't do anything to tarnish the Mistress's reputation," the woman grunted, "or you'll be sorry." She led him into a room that he recognized with a half-hopeful, half-terrified jolt as where the adoption interviews took place. Maybe the man was from the government, and was coming to take him to some juvenile detention center? Maybe even prison? _Wherever it is, it's got to be better than here,_ the boy thought darkly.

A man in a business suit stood up from behind the plain wooden table as the boy entered, adjusting his rectangular glasses. Behind the frames, his ice-blue eyes flashed with excitement and something else the boy couldn't identify...but he wasn't sure that he liked it. "Hello, young man," the man said smoothly, extending a hand. "It's wonderful to finally meet you."

"Hi," the boy said guardedly. He half-raised his shackled hands and the man lowered his arm back to his side. "Who are you?"

"My name is Leng," the man said, gesturing to the straight-backed wooden chair. The boy perched nervously on the edge, his racing mind not even so much as registering his aching muscles—this was all too foreign, too confusing, and he had to think harder and faster than this strange man. Leng could prove to be a very dangerous threat...or something else entirely.

"And why do you want to see me?" The boy asked.

"It's obvious," came the world's most unwelcome voice, like the edge of a knife screeching along a glass bottle. The Mistress walked in without so much a glance at the boy as she eyed Leng. "So. At last, someone has answered my request to get this boy away from me and my facility. Where will you be taking him? Prison? Some work camp?"

"No, not exactly," Leng said with an uncomfortable little smile. If he was spooked by the Mistress, he didn't show it. "My employer has taken an interest in the boy, and he—"

"I can't imagine why," the Mistress snorted. "This child is a delinquent, a criminal. Maximum behavioral correction is what's needed. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if he spent the rest of his life in jail, serving as someone's dog."

The boy's face burned and he stood up, a red-hot and barbed retort ready on his tongue, but Leng held up a hand. "That's _quite_ enough," he said, voice cold enough to chill flame. "If you'd leave us, please." It wasn't a request. The Mistress looked outraged, and the boy suspected that Leng was the only person who had ever tried to tell her what to do in her own business, but after a moment of the most intense staredown the boy had ever witnessed, she turned and stalked out the door, slamming it behind her.

"You...you made her leave," the boy said, impressed.

"I have practice in dealing with people," Leng said, gesturing for him to sit again.

The boy obeyed. "So...if you're not going to take me to some prison...what _do_ you want with me?" His defenses were raised to the maximum and his mind was working so fast that his head was starting to hurt. Leng didn't look the sort to want to adopt, and he didn't have any of the required paperwork with him...

"My employer wanted me to speak to you," Leng told him. "He's noticed you and has taken a special interest; you should be flattered."

"Flattery would be easier to feel if I knew who your employer was," the boy responded warily. "If you're working for some hotshot CEO looking for a successor to take over his company, I...think you've got the wrong kid."

"On the contrary," Leng said with a smile. "Are you hungry?" He asked unexpectedly.

The boy opened his mouth, then closed it again. His stomach growled loudly, answering for him. Leng smiled and lifted a plain brown briefcase from the floor, clicking the catches open and pulling out a thick white paper bag. "Here," he said, pushing it across the table. "I suspected you might not be getting enough to eat around here. Looks like I was right."

The boy unrolled the top and peered inside to see two burgers wrapped in wax paper. "You've poisoned them."

Leng laughed heartily. "Always on guard, I see! I'd thought as much. No, they're not poisoned. Go on."

Slowly, the boy reached in and picked up one of the sandwiches, turning it over and over in his hands and searching for any sort of puncture wounds that might prove that Leng was lying to him. Not seeing any, he unwrapped the paper, the crisp rustling making him even hungrier. "You promise it's not poisoned?"

"Answer me this, young man," Leng said, folding his hands on top of the table. "What would I gain out of poisoning you? Satisfaction, you think? I don't know you. We've never met, and I have nothing to hold against you, no reason to wish you ill. A personal desire to gain power? My employer doesn't have the most forgiving nature, and things would turn out the worse for me if I brought you to harm." He ticked off the reasons on his long fingers. "You have no possessions that I covet—I doubt you own more than the clothes on your back." He smiled.

"Maybe you're just a psychopath who enjoys killing people. You forgot that one."

"Be sensible, young man. If the Mistress came in and found your body slumped over this table, the police would be hunting me down faster than a hound would an injured deer." Leng's smile faded. "So, think of it the food as a trade. I give you food, you listen to me. Does that sound fair?"

The boy nodded slowly, deciding that Leng's reasoning did make sense. He sunk his teeth into the burger and gave an involuntary moan of pleasure; grease dripped out the other end and even though the boy was pretty sure that none of the ingredients were real, it was still the best thing he had ever tasted.

"Now, the first thing that I want you to understand is that this is an offer," Leng said, watching the boy closely. "You are free to take it or leave it. You were right in thinking that my employer is looking for someone to follow in his footsteps, but not quite in the way you suspected." He allowed himself a small chuckle. "He's not a CEO. He's sort of...his own boss, in layman's terms."

"And what exactly does he do?" The boy asked around a mouthful of food.

"He'll answer you that if you decide to take him up on his offer," Leng said mysteriously.

The boy swallowed before tearing into the burger again. "Why me?"

"He thinks that you have the sort of endurance and...disregard...for rules that he's looking for," Leng replied calmly.

"You're being very vague." The boy gulped down the last of the first burger and ripped into the second.

"I'm afraid I can't fix that," Leng said ruefully, spreading his hands in an apology. "My employer is very particular about what he wants people to know about him."

"Like his name?"

Leng nodded. "You catch on quickly."

"So, let me get this straight." The boy gave the handcuffs a soft, absentminded jerk, the short chain rattling. "You want me to sign myself over as some form of...apprentice...to a man that I've never met, whose plans you can't tell me, and whose name I don't even know."

Leng gave him a sheepish smile and adjusted his glasses. "It's up to you."

"Of course it is," the boy said. "I'm through letting the Mistress decide my fate for me." He turned to the guard, who had stood silently in the corner all this time. "I'd like to go back to solitary, please." He looked back at Leng. "Is there some way that I can contact you with my decision?" He lowered his voice to a theatrical whisper. "I don't want you to have to come back to this hellhole more than you have to."

Leng chuckled and reached into the pocket of his beige jacket. "Here," he said, handing the boy a small card with a phone number already written on it with a sloping hand. The boy read the number as many times as he could in the time it took the guard to cross the room, put a hand on his shoulder and grip it tightly, memorizing it. "Is there a time frame I have to make my decision in?" He looked up at Leng, who shook his head.

"The sooner the better, young man, but no, I wasn't informed about any sort of time limit." He gave the boy a short bow. "It was very nice to meet you."

"Yeah. Thanks for the food."

Leng smiled again and nodded to the guard before walking out of the room and down the hall. The boy listened to the sound of his shoes on the floor, thinking that maybe, just _maybe,_ the powers that be had taken pity on him and had indeed offered him a shot at salvation.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

The boy was awake all night and into the next day, thinking, pondering Leng's cryptic words and mysterious offer. His employer had taken notice of an orphan with a crime record? What sort of person was he? The boy rolled his head from side to side, frowning. What did this employer want from him? Something told the boy that this faceless stranger wasn't making this proposition out of the goodness of his heart... Leng had been kind to him, yes, but was that compassion designed to lure him in?

There was a knock on the door and the boy looked up sharply. Nobody ever knocked before, and as he had learned quickly (and often painfully), new things were cause for alarm. Holding his shackled hands in tight fists, he balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to dodge or fight whatever came into the room.

The Mistress entered, a strange look in her eyes. "You may return to your quarters," she said flatly. The boy's mouth opened in confusion, but before he could so much as think of what question to ask, she turned on the pointy heel of her red and black shoe and strode out the door with clipped, measured steps.

 _I can go?_ The boy's thoughts crashed around in his head like marbles in a washing machine; chaotic and deafening. _But she had assigned me to a three-month term in solitary...harsher than any other visits in terms of length—not that I'm complaining—but now I'm free?_ His senses were on high alert as he followed the Mistress and her guards down the hall, keeping a safe distance in case she made one of her wild decisions and ordered them to attack him. She had to be planning something. Had Leng threatened her? Had he contacted the police and told them of the abhorrent conditions that so many children were forced to endure? Was good finally showing its timid head?

"Can you take the handcuffs off?" The boy called up ahead, his stomach lurching in nervous alarm as the guard turned back to him, pulled a key from the pocket of his thick black pants, and unlocked them without a word before jogging back to the Mistress. Massaging his wrists more out of habit than need, the boy kept his pace slow so he would have optimal time to think. The trouble was...he didn't know _what_ to think! This new behavior had turned his entire life experience on its head, and it was all he could do not to run for a window, fling himself out, and run for the hills as fast as his legs could take. The only thing wrong with _that_ plan, for that matter, was that if things truly were finally turning around at the T.O.I., life could only get better. Maybe there would be more food. Perhaps less beatings, or possibly even a new wing added so it wasn't so cramped...

The boy shut his thoughts down firmly before they could run away with him; after the fourteen years he had spent with the Mistress, hope was an emotion that he didn't allow himself to feel. He drew and released a slow, steady breath and slid his hands—knuckles covered in dried blood from his boxing match with the wall—into the pockets of his hoodie, tugging the loose threads inside out of habit. Maybe...maybe _this_ was her tactic! What if the Mistress wanted to make him so nervous and wound up with anxiety that he wore himself out completely, leaving him defenseless for when she finally struck? In that case, it was time to don his mask of cold indifference...

He made his way up the narrow staircase, steps covered in carpet so thin that paper would appear like a down-comforter in comparison. A seven year old boy with a shirt with more holes than Swiss cheese came bounding around the corner and catastrophe was barely avoided as the child pinwheeled his arms through the air to slow himself.

"Watch where you're going," the boy snapped.

With a frightened nod, the child scampered around him. The boy clenched his hands inside his hoodie pockets and ground his teeth together. He knew it was wrong, but it felt good to occasionally vent his frustration on the smaller children—but he never raised a hand against them. In that he was able to control himself. He pushed open the door to the room he shared with three other people and scowled when he saw Hiro sprawled on the single bed.

"Hey, weird-eyes," Hiro smirked.

"Hey, ithypallic galoot," the boy responded.

Hiro stared at him, baffled. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Look it up, if figuring out how to use a dictionary isn't beyond the capabilities of your abnormally small brain." The boy had learned from experience that being especially nasty was effective in encouraging people to steer clear, and that was exactly what he wanted. To make things worse, he had never liked Hiro, and he _especially_ hated it when people pointed out his eyes: pale turquoise, striking against his dark brown hair and deeply tanned skin. The boy walked to the window and sat on the sill, bracing one foot against the wall to help him keep his balance while managing to look frigid but nonchalant. Hunger rumbled in his stomach and he pressed his knuckles against his abdomen, doing his best to ignore it. If the Mistress had some sort of dastardly idea in mind, he would play his hand of keeping to his room. He had read somewhere that some cultures used humiliation and degradation to make prisoners of war suffer; stripping people of their humanity was crueler than denying them food. Hunger had been as constant in his life as a shadow, but his dignity was what he clung tightest to even when the guards punched him from one end of a room to the other. _More food for the other kids,_ whispered the kind (but sometimes pessimistic) voice that occasionally spoke up in his mind.

Besides, he didn't have a right to the food downstairs in the grimy dining hall; what he had consumed during the meeting with Leng was the rough equivalent to a week in the T.O.I., so his night would be spent sitting on the windowsill instead of fighting over a piece of bread.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hiro get up and slouch grumpily out of the room, clumping down the stairs. The boy breathed a sigh of relief that changed to a growl when Mo, six feet tall and gangly and with a face bearing more acne scars than the crater-and-trench-covered battlefields of World War One. Mo reeked with a stench that would make a locker room filled to the ceiling with sweaty shoes and dog shit smell fragrant.

The boy forced the window open and crawled out onto the roof—there was no screen to keep him caged in. There hadn't been, ever since he had wrenched it out three years ago and broken it over a guard's head. He liked to sit on the roof, and evenings like this were his favorite. The air was chill, almost frosty, and storm clouds brewed promisingly on the horizon. A single star peeked a sparkling eye through the deep indigo curtain that covered the sky. The boy tucked his legs up to his chest and rested his chin on his knees, sighing softly through his nose. Constant puzzling and wondering was tiring him out, and he wanted to go to sleep, but old habits died hard; his hammering heart and buzzing thoughts kept him awake.

That was when he heard the phone ring from high up in the Mistress's quarters. He caught his breath, eyes widening. He had tried constantly to get hold of that phone and call the police—at least in the early days before he had come to resent the men who patrolled the streets and always brought him back—but now a unique opportunity presented itself: the chance to eavesdrop. He began to half crawl, half climb up the slope of the roof, keeping his body low in case the witch happened to glance out her window. Inhaling slowly and deliberately, he steeled himself before jumping, flying through the air for a second before he slammed into the wrought-iron fence on the Mistress's balcony. His chest throbbed from the collision, but he had a secure hold on the freezing bars. Awkwardly shimmying to the side, he made his way to the side of the window, where he could balance and listen without being spotted should she glance outside.

"I'm telling you, I just don't know what to do with that boy," he heard her saying into the phone, her cold voice sounding unexpectedly tired. "He tried to escape again just a few days ago...mhm...yes, and then some government mama's boy drove by and wanted to _talk_ to him, can you imagine?"

 _No,_ the boy thought, stomach churning. Who was she talking to, and why was _he_ the subject of conversation?

"His reputation is getting bad for business," the Mistress went on.

 _What business? A cemetery receives more cheerful visits than this godforsaken place._

"Oh, I know. Made the papers last time."

 _Because I vandalized a glass window, telling people that the Transformation Orphan Institute is hell on earth. But did the cops investigate? Noooo. Thought I was just some punk trying to stir up trouble._

"Of _course_ I'm aware of that," the Mistress snapped, the tiredness vanishing from her voice as her tone took on its usual look-at-me-and-I'll-kill-you vibe. "How could you think I wasn't?"

The boy waited, teetering on the precarious slope of the roof, straining his ears.

"I know, I know," the Mistress said in a low voice. The boy heard her footsteps crossing the floor toward the window and inched away from the window as quickly as he dared, seeing the light from within the room cast a long and angular shadow out onto the roof. "Yes," she said, the shadow's head turning back and forth to check for eavesdroppers. The boy kept his breathing steady and light; if he decided to hold it and _she_ decided to stay at the window for minutes on end, he would eventually have to exhale, and the ensuing gasp could let her know that he was listening in.

"Yes," she said again. "I have a plan to take care of the boy, if you know what I mean." There was no mistaking the malicious smile in her voice.

The boy was so shocked that he nearly slipped and fell. She was going to kill him, or arrange something so that he wouldn't be a problem to her anymore! A single thought raced through his head, over and over, as he began to creep slowly away from the window, the feeling rapidly leaving his shaking hands. _Leng. I have to get Leng...before the Mistress gets_ me.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

 **{This chapter is for ponystoriesandothers, along with my thanks ~Undiscovered}**

The boy didn't know how long he stayed on the roof (hours, surely), scrambling for any sort of patchwork plan that might help him save his skin. He had to think in short sentences, or else his thoughts would run away with him and he would be left a babbling idiot with no more clue how to survive than how to grow wings and dig with them. Where were the phones? He answered his own silent question; the only phones that he had discovered after his many years at the Institute belonged to the Mistress and the guards. What was more dangerous, he queried next. Getting a cell phone from a guard would mean that he could run with it and hide, if the need came, but there was only one hateful old woman as opposed to her legion of titanic Neanderthals. He had to create a distraction that would keep her from her room, or find a way to take down a guard.

The Mistress's chatter drifted through the window and met his ears, and from the way she was carrying on about the price of spa visits ( _it would take a lot more than a spa to put a dent in the witch,_ the boy thought angrily), it wasn't likely that she was going to leave any time soon.

So be it.

The boy crept backward to his window, as descending was much safer if he went feet-first, and eased himself back inside. Mo was sitting on the bed, absently turning the pages of a picture book. His glazed eyes were too dulled with boredom to even bother reading the words printed next to the colorful illustrations.

A full-frontal assault might be better in this case. The boy walked across the floor, shoulders back and head high in as authoritative a posture as he could adapt. He was aware of Mo's gaze flicking up to follow his path, but he forced himself not to look back. He strode from the dormitory and through the hallways.

"You there!" A guard barked from the end of a corridor. The boy turned, swearing to himself. He had made it halfway to the kitchen—not quite the estimate he had allowed himself when stitching together his plan.

He turned, arranging his features into as lofty and disinterested a mask as he could. "Yes?"

"Where are you going? It's past curfew!"

"So it is," the boy said, feigning surprise as he looked at an imaginary watch on his wrist. "Well, you've caught me. I suppose I'll go back to my dormitory and leave the Mistress's errand undone. I'll be sure to mention you in my report to her."

"She chose _you_ to do something for her?" The guard scoffed at him, but the boy knew from the nervous shifting of his weight and eyes that the hulking man had lost the upper ground. "That's a load of bullshit if I've ever heard one!"

"I'll tell her that, and I'll be sure to quote you." The boy raised his eyebrows politely. "What's your name?"

The guard looked around for a second time. "What's this errand?"

"She wanted me to get chamomile tea from the kitchen," the boy said, executing Stage Two of his plan. "Her joints are acting up and she asked for it to help her sleep."

"But why _you_?" The guard still wasn't entirely convinced.

"I'm sure that you're familiar with my reputation around here," the boy said casually, turning to walk on, the movement silently commanding the guard to follow him. "Surely such an...educated man as yourself can guess that I've learned the hard way not to steal food, especially if accompanied by someone twice my size. I'm no match for you." _At least not when it comes to sheer brute strength..._

The guard considered this, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. "All right," he said gruffly. "I'll walk you to the kitchens and back."

"Wonderful," the boy said agreeably. He led the way by barely a step, establishing a sort of unspoken trust by allowing the guard to see his unprotected back, strengthening that by not once glancing over his shoulder.

The plan was so nearly disrupted; one hallway away from the kitchen they ran into another guard—the one who had slapped the boy in the car. His meaty hand flew to the baton on his belt but by some stroke of luck the first guard held up a hand to stop him. "It's okay, Tom. Mistress's orders."

Tom's forehead furrowed in doubt and confusion, but he let them pass unhindered.

The boy let out a silent sigh of relief, his heart slowing from where it had jackrabbited inside his chest to a painful speed. _Not far now,_ he told himself. _Not far now._

He opened the door to the kitchen, knowing from past excursions that it was never locked until midnight. The cook was nowhere to be found—on the same prior quests for food, the boy had learned that the cook took a fifteen minute cigarette break at a quarter past eleven. He glanced at the cheap plastic clock on the wall. Seven minutes left.

"I did forget to ask," the boy said, turning to the guard. "Do you know where the tea is?"

The guard rubbed the back of his head, desire to stay on the Mistress's good side overcoming his mistrust of the boy. "When I was a kid, my mother always kept the tea in a small cupboard above the stove," he remembered aloud. "I suppose that's as good a place to start as any."

"Splendid idea. Would you like to check that side of the kitchen? It'll go faster if we split up."

"I think it's best if I keep an eye on you," the guard said, narrowing his eyes at the boy.

 _You're playing right into my hands._ "Very well." The boy took the lead again, once more presenting his unprotected back to the broad-shouldered guard. _Give him cause for added suspicion,_ the boy told himself. "Do you see a kettle anywhere?"

The guard turned his head away from the boy for a second, and that was all he needed. Lunging, he snatched a dirty pan off the washing cart and gripped the handle, swinging the pan like a baseball bat and putting all his strength into the blow. It struck the man's skull with a sickening, clanging crunch and the man hit the floor like a falling tree. Blood oozed thickly through his professional comb-over but the boy hit him again for good measure, cracking the pan squarely down across the man's face and smashing his nose to smithereens. The boy waited, making sure that the guard didn't move, before reaching down and yanking the cell phone from his belt. Flipping it open, he punched in Leng's number with more force than necessary and jammed the phone up against his ear. One ring...two.

"Pick up, damn you," the boy hissed, glancing toward the door with his stomach jumping in anticipation. Three rings, four. " _Dammit,_ you motherless bastard! Pick up the phone!"

"I hope I'm not this 'motherless bastard' you're looking for," Leng commented through a yawn, _finally_ answering. "It's late—very late. Is everything okay, young man?"

"You need to come. Now. And you need to get me away from here. Tell your employer that I'll work for him or whatever he wants," the boy babbled into the phone, watching a rivulet of blood seep slowly toward his foot.

"What's going on?" Leng asked, small thumps and clatters coming from the other end, as though he were scrambling for keys and the like.

"I think the Mistress wants to kill me," the boy said shortly, looking toward the door again. "You just need to get here, and fast. I wouldn't call if I didn't mean it."

"I know you wouldn't," Leng said seriously. "I'm on my way. Will you be okay for ten minutes?"

The boy nodded, then realized that Leng couldn't see him through the phone. "Yes, I should be," he said, deciding in an instant not to mention that he had possibly just murdered a man with a skillet. "But _only_ ten minutes."

"I'm leaving now," Leng said, and the boy heard a car purr smoothly to life. "Do you want me to stay on the phone with you?"

The boy considered. "Yes, but don't talk unless I say something first."

"Is...is someone hunting you?"

 _Hunting._ The word sent chills rushing down the boy's spine.

"If there isn't now, there will be soon."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

The boy knew that his time was limited by even more than Leng's commute; if one of the other guards had heard the commotion caused by the battle of Skillet vs. Head, he was in trouble there wasn't words for. And if the guard woke up before he could be sufficiently taken care of... Looking around, he snatched two folded dishtowels off a shiny metal shelf and opened the guard's slack mouth with a grimace, wincing at the sight of broken and blood-smeared teeth.

"Sorry," the boy whispered, apologizing to a guard for the first time in his life.

"Sorry?" Leng asked over the phone. "Sorry for what?"

"Nothing," the boy murmured quickly, gingerly shoving one towel into the guard's mouth, being careful not to choke him with it. Being charged for assault with a frying pan would be bad enough; he definitely didn't need to be convicted for accidentally making a man choke to death on a towel embroidered with sappy smiling chickens. He rolled the other towel up and tied it over the guard's mouth to stop him from spitting out the first gag upon waking. "Leng, how close are you?"

"Nine minutes," Leng said, voice both patient and worried. "Where can I meet you?"

"Uh..." The boy's mind scrambled. "I'll try to get out the front door and get to the end of the road. "Erm, fair word of warning to you: the police are probably going to be called in about fifteen minutes, if that."

"Cops aren't a problem for me," Leng said ominously.

When did the cook get back in? Shifting to better see the clock, the boy looked at the hands winding their way slowly and dangerously over the plastic surface. "Shit!" He had four minutes at most. He grabbed the guard under the arms and, grunting with effort, hauled him to the meat locker and heaved him inside before ramming the door shut and locking it.

"Is anyone there?" The cook's voice rang through the kitchen, sounding as warm and friendly as an iceberg kissing an ocean liner.

" _Dammit!_ " The boy dropped to all fours and shoved the phone into the pocket of his hoodie. Silently repeating a litany of words and phrases that would have made a nun faint, he crept slowly toward the door, carefully watching the cook's shoes through the gaps beneath shelves and carts. _Go back outside,_ he prayed. _Please, please..._ Cursing himself up and down, he lamented angrily that he should have accounted for the noise that subduing the guard would make. For all his cautious planning, he still made a rookie mistake!

The phone buzzed in his pocket and he clapped a hand over it to muffle the noise, catching his breath as he saw the cook's shoes turn toward him. "Dwayne?"

 _Dwayne is in pain,_ the boy thought, and felt the crazy desire to laugh. This wasn't the time for stupid rhymes! If he was caught, he was as good as dead!

"Dwayne, if this is some stupid joke I'll put strychnine in your burritos," the cook called out with a hint of a smile in his voice. "I heard you come in here."

The boy crept toward the door, glancing feverishly between it and the flour-dusted shoes that began to walk slowly down the aisle. The phone buzzed in his pocket again and he gritted his teeth. Fourteen years of self-control and stealth were climaxing into this final test, and it was pass and live or fail and die.

The cook turned his back and the boy made a break for it, leaping to his feet and throwing himself toward the door, running lightly on the balls of his feet and hurling himself through the opening, sprinting down the hallway and around the corner, looking quickly up and down the corridor before prying open the window and slithering out. He snatched the phone from his pocket and pressed it to his ear. "That was close."

"What happened? Are you okay?" Leng asked. There was a squeal of brakes from the other end of the connection.

"How close are you?" The boy asked, dodging the question.

"Five minutes. What happened?"

"Someone almost caught me," the boy said, honest but vague. "Can you get away from the police if they come after you—after us?"

"Of course," Leng said with a certainty that would have been disturbing in any other circumstance. "Can you get to the end of the lane?"

"I'll be there," the boy said. "I'm going to hang up now."

"Will you be all right?"

"If I'm not waiting for you in five minutes, you'll know I've run into trouble. What's your employer say about all this?"

"He's very eager to meet you."

"Tell him I'm curious." The boy flipped the phone closed and crouched, leaning back against the side of the T.O.I. His heart was jackhammering away at his ribs like it was trying to crash through them with bone-splintering force and hurl itself all the way down the road. He waited, fighting to control his breathing and listening closely for any sounds coming from the kitchen. Did he have time to sneak back into the Institute and look for a possible weapon, in case Leng was bringing police with him?

 _Oh god._ The thought made the boy shudder in fear; was this all a trap? True, the man had been on the phone with him the entire time, except for those horrible moments in the kitchen...were the vibrations in his pocket Leng trying to call him back after alerting the authorities?

"OH MY GOD!"

The scream made the boy jerk his head up, heart rate skyrocketing at the sound of the cook's exclamation. So he had found the blood...or the unconscious Dwayne.

Either way, it was time to go.

For once thankful that all he owned were the ratty pair of jeans and the gray hoodie he wore, the boy stood up and sprinted into the darkness. His muscles were still sore from exercising in solitary confinement, but he could not afford to let the pain slow him. If he hesitated, he was a goner. His feet pounded against the lane, every uneven chunk of asphalt and every sharp pebble stabbing through the paper-thin soles of his shoes, his arms pumping at his sides as he put as much distance between the building and himself. The yawning darkness loomed welcomingly in front of him, but it retreated rapidly as lights flicked on in windows. Faster, _faster_! The boy knew the Mistress well enough to know that she would suspect him first; no other orphan had so extensive a record or such a known hatred for guards and authority. His only hope was that Dwayne would remain unconscious for a while yet so he wouldn't be able to confirm that the boy had been the one who attacked him. Of course, Tom now presented the biggest problem, but that was one variable that the boy couldn't afford to look to.

He strained his eyes against the blackness, both grateful and dismayed that the moon was only the faintest sliver in the sky; it would be harder to see him, but at the same time he was running blind. No sooner had the thought flickered through his head than his foot caught in a pothole and he fell hard, slamming into the asphalt. Sharp and gritty pain lanced through his palms, his knees, and his cheek and he scrambled to his feet again, staggering for a few steps before he picked up his stride once again. Hot blood oozed down his sweaty face and the gashes stung as tears of fury and desperation burned the backs of his eyes. He had never been one to pray but now he promised the silent sky that he would do nearly anything if it meant he would be safe.

He heard a car start up from behind him and he bit back a strangled scream of frustration. Throwing a wild look over his shoulder he saw headlights blaze to life and he cut sharply to the right, veering off the lane as he plunged into the blackness. Taking this route was a gamble to be sure; if he caught his foot in a rabbit hole and broke his ankle, he would be doomed. The rumble of an engine, so like the drumroll of an executioner, grew louder and louder and the boy threw himself to the ground, crawling behind a bush and shoving his face into the tangle of brittle branches. The three things to look for when scouting for prey, he knew, were movement, color, and shape. Keeping his eyes on the road, he grabbed fistfuls of dirt from the base of the roots and rubbed it over his face to hide the pallor of his skin.

"He can't have gone far." The Doppler Effect let the boy catch the driver's dark words as the car cruised slowly by. The passenger, possibly Tom, shone a flashlight out the window and the boy closed his eyes tightly, praying even harder than before. The yellow cone of light shone directly into his face for a brief moment and his heart stuttered painfully in his chest, but the dirt and the branches did their job; Tom passed over him and the car kept going. Slowly, the boy pulled the phone from his pocket and dialed Leng's number, keeping his eye on the car.

"Leng," he whispered.

"What's going on?"

"People are looking for me," he breathed, pressing himself flatter into the dirt. "They're driving down the road—two people in the car at least. Don't let them see you."

"Got it. Thanks." There was a brief silence, the connection buzzing ever so softly. "Are you hurt?"

The boy's cheek and palms stung from where he had rubbed dirt into the cuts trying to camouflage himself. "I fell. But it's not serious. Where are you?"

"At the end of the road."

"Leng!" The boy hissed. "How is that supposed to keep them from seeing you?"

"Oh, they'll see me," Leng said easily, seeming supremely unconcerned for his own safety. "But they won't know who I am."

"You're out of your mind."

"Perhaps," Leng agreed. "But I'll be waiting here for you. Get here when you can, okay?"

"I will."

"Best you hang up; I don't want the glow of the screen getting you caught. Besides, you'll move easier when one of your hands isn't holding a cell phone."

"Okay," the boy whispered, obeying the suggestion and tucking the phone into the pocket of his jeans, where it would be more secure than in his hoodie. He couldn't see Tom's car anymore, but that didn't mean that the guard and the driver weren't lying in wait with the headlights off, and if that were the case (and even if it weren't), staying low would offer the best chances of escape and survival. He raised himself slightly above an army crawl and began to creep through the long, unkempt grass, for once thankful at the lack of property maintenance. The stalks tickled across his face and he wrinkled his nose to combat the urge to sneeze. His hoodie and jeans caught on sharp twigs that jutted up from the ground like witchy fingers desperate to hold him back.

A dark, sleek mass in the darkness caught his eye as the faintest gleam of moonlight shone softly off a shining paint job, and the boy slowly pulled the phone from his pocket. He dialed and pressed it to his ear, and Leng answered almost immediately.

"I think I see your car," the boy whispered. "Blink your lights."

Two blindingly bright white lights flashed once, twice. Blinking away the pinkish-green splotches that danced in front of his eyes, the boy shifted on the ground. "Start your car, then turn it off."

The purr of an engine met his ears before it died abruptly.

"Get out of the car," the boy whispered.

The door opened and a man stepped out, and instantly the boy froze. Something was wrong. This man, illuminated by the light inside the car, was heavyset, over six feet tall, and Jamaican, judging purely off his red, yellow, and green jacket and Rastafarian dreadlocks—he couldn't be farther from Leng's slender Asian stature.

"Who the hell is _that_?"

"That's me," Leng's voice said.

"Bullshit!" The boy retorted in an acid hiss. " Do you think I'm blind? No, Leng, _that's_ what happens when Jimi Hendrix and a linebacker get drunk and bang each other."

Leng laughed loudly, and so did the man standing by the car. They _sounded_ alike, but it could be a clever impersonator...at least there were no cops inside the vehicle. The bright light on the inside made that much clear, and the boy relaxed slightly.

"This is my disguise," Leng explained. "Do you like it?" Before the boy could answer, he twisted the tiny dial on the side of his wristwatch. There was an electric buzzing noise and the man's silhouette crackled and changed, almost like a shapeshifter in a cartoon the boy had seen once, and in a second Leng stood in his place, looking as welcome as the gates of heaven. "See?"

"What the—how—?" The boy stammered.

"A gift from my employer. You'd best come on, before the people looking for you come back." Leng got inside the car and turned the key in the ignition, fastening his seat belt and waiting. Hesitantly, the boy got to his feet, though he stayed slumped forward into a partial hunter's crouch. He crept toward the car until he was on the passenger side, ready to run for his life if there was a cop hiding on the floor in the backseat. Mercifully, there wasn't, and Leng smiled at him. "Hello, young man."

The boy opened the door and slid inside, and instantly Leng's expression changed to one of shock. "Good God! What happened to you!"

"I told you, I fell." The boy looked anxiously out the window, scanning the darkness for any other cars that might be approaching. He froze as Leng's hand cupped his jaw and turned his head carefully so that the gash on his cheek came into the light.

"That looks bad," Leng murmured, his forehead furrowing.

"I've had worse," the boy said shortly, pulling away. "Let's get out of here."

Leng still looked disturbed, but he stepped obligingly on the gas pedal and the car pulled smoothly away from the only life the boy had ever known.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

They drove in silence for a while, before the boy could feel Leng's eyes on him. "What?"

"I'm curious...how did you escape?"

"You swear you won't report me to the police?"

"Young man," Leng said, adjusting his glasses, "don't you think I would have done it by now?" Seeing his unconvinced expression, he added, "Besides, if I turned you in, they would arrest me as well because I'm helping you escape."

"I might have killed a man with a skillet," the boy confessed.

Leng raised his eyebrows. "Might have?"

"I hit a guard in the face. Twice." The boy ran his dirty fingers through his hair, pulling a twig out and tossing it out the window. "I told him that the Mistress had sent me to the kitchens and he came with me, and then I attacked him."

"Clever," Leng said with a slow nod, and the boy stared at him in disbelief.

"I might have killed a man and that's your only comment?"

"I've dealt with worse things than murderers, young man," Leng assured him quietly. "Besides, you were saving your skin because of an offer that my employer and I made you. If anything, we share the blame."

The boy leaned back against the seat and looked out the window as Leng drove. "Your employer has killed people too, hasn't he?"

Leng was quiet for a moment before nodding. "He has. Why do you ask?"

"Trying to figure out what sort of person I've signed myself over to." He dabbed gingerly at his cheek with the edge of his sleeve. "He's not going to kill _me,_ is he?"

"It would be extremely counter-intuitive and, if I may say so, stupid if he did," Leng answered, flicking his blinker on and turning smoothly, accelerating after the car straightened out. "Why go to all the trouble of rescuing you if his end plan was to slit your throat and dump your body in a ditch?"

"So I'll be his apprentice," the boy said more to himself than Leng. "Will I meet him tonight?"

"Tomorrow, actually," Leng said, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. "I mean, I suppose we could go to him tonight, if you really wanted to."

"As opposed to...?"

"Staying at my place tonight," Leng offered. "Food, a shower, sleep..."

The boy looked out the window, considering. The offer sounded tempting...and almost too good to be true. Fortune had been a fair weather friend in the storm of the boy's life, and he had learned the hard way that if something sounded too good to be true, it was.

Leng seemed to be able to read his thoughts, because he sighed softly and said, "I know that it's a hard lesson, young man, but it's one you should learn: some people really do want to help you."

* * *

Leng's apartment was the most comfortable place the boy had ever seen. While it was small, it felt warm and intimate, like the embrace of a dear friend. Books on almost every subject the boy could think of lined the shelves, tucked snugly up against each other, while mismatched furniture was placed strategically around the room; a couch by one bookcase, an armchair by another, a desk beneath the window.

"I can't believe you live here," the boy stated in awe, slowly turning in a circle and trying to take it all in.

Leng chuckled, gently closing the door. "With a reaction like that, I'd expect you to have just walked into a palace."

"You're talking to a kid who spent the entirety of his life in that hellhole of an Institute," the boy retorted.

"Point well made," Leng said. He gestured down the narrow hall. "The bathroom's that way; you should clean up those scrapes before the dirt gets them infected."

The boy touched his fingertips to his cheek, looking faintly surprised. He had nearly forgotten about his fall while running away from the T.O.I. "Do you mind if I use your shower?"

"Please, be my guest," Leng responded. "I'll get you some food."

The boy stepped into the bathroom and locked the door firmly, leaning against it with a heavy sigh. He still didn't know if he trusted Leng—despite how badly he wanted to believe that the man really did want to help him, the pessimistic but realistic little voice in the back of his mind whispered that the kindness was only to make the boy feel like he was indebted to his savior. The promise of a shower and food swayed his resolve and it was all he could do to cling to it, to not throw away fourteen years of hard-earned lessons at the offer of a greasy burger.

The boy looked in the mirror and took a step back in shock. He hadn't expected that he would look like _that..._ His face, under the thick layer of dirt, was much thinner than he had thought, with hollow cheeks and bruise-like bags under the guarded turquoise eyes. His thick, choppy brown hair flopped tiredly over his forehead, and one cheek looked like it had gone twelve rounds with a cheese grater and lost—badly.

Unable to tear his eyes from his reflection, he slowly removed his hoodie and eyed his bare torso with a frown: prominent ribs and a patchwork quilt of bruises across his stomach and chest. Whipcord muscle and jutting bone was all that he was now. He let his hoodie drop to the floor before slowly undoing the belt around his narrow hips and stripping out of his jeans before turning on the water and cautiously testing it with his fingertips. It was icy at first, the frigid droplets sliding down his palm and stinging the scrapes on the heel of his hand so fiercely that he had to jerk away, hissing in pain. He allowed himself a moment to collect himself and brace for the hurt again before he stepped fully into the water, which was now quite hot.

The boy couldn't restrain himself from giving a blissful sigh as the steam swirled up around him, the water gushing down over his head and shoulders. He clenched his jaw and groaned as his cheek burned, the raw and torn flesh screaming a protest as the dirt was washed away, but he forbade himself from stepping away from the water. _It'll be over soon..._

And it was. A few moments later the pain quieted and he turned his head, rubbing his fingers through his soggy hair and scraping his fingernails against his scalp. "Jesus," he sighed, closing his eyes as the heat gushed divinely over his face. He hadn't had a hot shower in...ever, really.

When he was done, he pulled a folded towel from a cabinet on the wall and shook it out before rubbing his hair into damp spikes, gingerly touching the wound on his cheek with the soft folds. Wrapping the towel around his waist, he began to open and close the cupboards in search of antiseptic or isopropyl alcohol and gauze pads. If he didn't find what he was looking for, he supposed that he could use regular soap and water, but...

Aha! There, behind the half-full bottle of hair gel. The boy withdrew it carefully and looked at the label. _91% isopropyl alcohol. Prevents risk of infection in scrapes and minor cuts._ The boy glanced up through his lashes to study his reflection, biting his bottom lip. _I wouldn't call that a minor scrape,_ he thought wryly, twisting the bottle open. Almost immediately the powerful smell of alcohol hit his nose and he put the bottle down, making a face. He hated that scent more than anything else. Finding a packet of gauze pads, he tore it open and carefully dumped some of the transparent liquid onto one. Gritting his teeth, he unwrapped the towel from around his waist and bit as much of it as he could before gripping the pad between the heels of his hands. Fire shot through his palms and into his wrists and he groaned, wordless protests of pain muffled by the towel.

 _Face next..._ The boy bit down harder and raised the gauze pad with a shaking hand, inhaling to steady his nerves before he pressed the alcohol-soaked pad to his cheek. The pain was so bad that he yelped, hand jerking away from his face as knees gave way beneath him and his elbows slammed into the counter, dropping the pad reflexively. " _God_!" He gasped, spitting out the towel and forcing himself to stand back up. "Come on, get it together," he growled at himself, picking up the pad and looking into the mirror, studying his own pale face.

Leng knocked softly on the door. "Are you okay? I heard you scream. What are you doing?"

"I..." The boy adjusted the towel around his waist and clenched his hands into fists, trying to dispel the lingering pain. "I'm making sure that the scrapes I got don't get infected." He paused, squeezing his eyes shut. "It doesn't feel pleasant."

"I imagine it doesn't," Leng commented dryly. "Do you want me to take a look at it?"

The boy shook his head, dropping his chin down to his chest. "I don't need your help," he said, more harshly than he intended to. "I can do it on my own."

"I'm sure you can." There was a small shuffling sound from the other side of the door. "There's some clean clothes outside for you—I apologize if they're too big, but it's all that I have and it looks like your coat and jeans could use a wash."

"Why?" The boy asked, picking up the gauze pad again.

"Because they're covered in dirt, dried blood, and—"

"No, I mean why are you doing this?" The boy asked, staring himself down in the mirror. "Why are you being so kind to me? Why offer me food and a shower and...all this? What could your employer possibly want with me? I'm a nobody off the streets, Leng." His eyes darkened. "If you're planning to sell me into some sort of trafficking ring, I can assure you that it is _not_ going to end well for you."

He heard Leng sigh. "I told you, young man, some people want to help you. There _are_ good people in the world and I'm very, very sorry that you've been dealt so many hands of brutality and abuse. I give you my solemn word that I will never lay a hand on you."

The boy didn't say anything.

"Call it being a decent person," Leng offered.

He still didn't respond.

"Let me know if you want help treating your scrapes," Leng said, and the boy heard his footsteps walking away. He fingered the gauze pad as he bit down on the towel again, raising a (still faintly trembling) hand to his cheek. Again the fire blazed through his face and he groaned, squeezing his eyes shut once more, but he refused to drop the gauze this time as he carefully probed the wound.

The clothes outside the door were a simple pair of pajama pants and a Yankees T-shirt that fit the boy like a dress. "I assume these weren't yours," he said, raising an eyebrow at Leng, who sat on the couch with a sleek black laptop.

"Sort of," Leng replied, glancing up with a small quirk of his mouth.

"Whose are they?"

"Thrift store fodder," he said. "Comfortable?"

"More so than I've been in a while," the boy confessed, leaning against the wall. "So, what's the plan? Keep me here until tomorrow morning before taking me to your employer?"

"Nobody is _keeping_ you anywhere, young man," Leng said with a hint of weariness in his voice, taking off his glasses. "You're welcome to stay, if you like, but when you phrase it like that it makes me sound like your kidnapper."

"You're all about perception, aren't you."

"I am," Leng agreed. "You know, before I worked for S...my current employer, I was a lawyer. Perception is very, very important."

"Why did you stop?"

Leng lifted a finger. "That is personal, and I'm sure that you of all people know how important it is to not reveal all your cards at once."

"That makes sense," the boy said. "So..." He scratched his leg with his other foot, glancing down at his raw palms. "What do you think that your employer is going to do with me?"

"Make you his apprentice, as I've told you."

"No, I know that, I mean...what do you think that he'll have me do, as his apprentice?"

Leng sighed and closed the laptop with a soft click. "I haven't the slightest idea, and even if I did, I don't think that it's my place to tell you."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

"No."

"Please," Leng said. "I've received orders from my employer, and he wants it to be this way."

"I don't give a _damn_ what your employer says, you are _not_ blindfolding me and taking me to some creepy rendezvous!" The boy folded his arms over his chest and scowled.

"My employer is a very secretive person, he—"

"He's a criminal," the boy growled back. "You want to blindfold me so that I can't see where I'm going in case I want to run out on my deal and report him to the police, right?"

Leng didn't say anything, and that was as good as a confession.

"Listen—I won't back out. I've committed crimes before: petty ones, but crimes nonetheless. Stealing and the like, but that's beside the point. I'll be the first to say that I don't like the police, Leng. They've delivered me to the hellhole time and again instead of taking me to child services or something like that. Don't ask me why, I don't know." Anger flared up in his chest at the memories that cascaded down around him. "I figure your employer and I have a mutual dislike—contempt, even—for authority and reporting him will only get me involved with _them._ Do you know what that means? I have a much larger chance of being shipped back to the Mistress and trust me, she will _not_ be happy to see me after I gave the cops the slip and beat a guard with a skillet."

Leng sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "My employer is...not one to cross."

"Neither am I," the boy said seriously.

"Tell you what," Leng offered, half holding up his hands in a gesture of compromise. "I don't blindfold you, but we take a car with no windows in the back."

"You really don't want me seeing where it is we're going."

"If it were up to me, I'd give you a map," Leng told him.

"You're afraid of your employer," the boy realized aloud.

Leng nodded, lowering his eyes in an ashamed confession.

"We can take the car," the boy said. He wasn't happy with it, but it was better than standing around and arguing. Besides, he was _really_ looking forward to meeting the mysterious employer.

"Please put the blindfold on when we go into the building." Leng's eyes were bright with worry.

"Nobody controls me," the boy hissed.

"You don't understand what kind of spot I'm in," Leng said in an undertone, glancing around as though he were afraid of being overheard. "You can be defiant all you want when you meet him, but please...don't drag me down with you."

"You work for him. You're already getting dragged down."

"Please. Just do this one thing for me," Leng implored, and the boy sighed.

"Give me the blindfold," he groaned. "And don't thank me—we do this on _my_ terms. One: if you try to tie my hands, you'll end up eating your hubcaps. Two: no gags or any bullshit like that. Three: I take that blindfold off as soon as I'm in the same room with this employer—no, I take it off as soon as I'm inside."

Leng nodded, almost eagerly.

The boy accepted the strip of black cloth and tied it over his eyes, his jaw set grimly. He hated this situation; he only agreed because he felt like he owed Leng for the kindness he had been shown. This was why he didn't trust people—as soon as they established a connection, they demanded something from you, something as crucial as the sense of sight.

Leng put a hand on his shoulder and helped him from the back of the truck. "Thank you," he murmured. "I'm very grateful."

"You better be," the boy responded. He hated walking blind, hated having to rely on anyone for anything. "And if it were anyone but you, I wouldn't have so much as considered it."

"There's a door here," Leng cautioned. "A step, about six inches high."

The boy felt for it with his thin sneaker and stepped over. "Let me take this off now. We're inside. That's the agreement."

"On the contrary," came a new voice. The boy froze in his tracks. The voice was smooth and confident, ice-cold and calm. He jerked away with a snarl as weirdly cold gloved hands touched his face.

"Stay away from me! I don't know who the hell you are, but if you touch me one more time—"

To his surprise, the voice laughed and before the boy could even think to move again, one of the hands fastened around the nape of his neck and the other pulled the blindfold off in a single motion. The boy found himself face to face with Leng's employer, and in that instant, he knew why the man was afraid.

Twisting away, he stared up into the employer's face. It was hidden by a bizarre mask, copper on one side and jet-black on the other, giving his face the illusion of being permanently half-cloaked in shadow. Only one eye, the left one, storm-gray and cold, showed through the mask. The right half didn't have an eye-hole at all.

 _Blind on that side,_ the boy noted.

The man stood at least six and a half feet tall, his partially armored body thick and strong with muscle. Not an inch of skin showed.

 _No chance I could take him in a fight,_ the boy concluded, calculating odds as quickly as he could. _That suit's full covering means that nobody knows what he looks like unless he takes it off._

"Thank you, Leng," the man said, looking past the boy. "I can take things from here."

"Of course," Leng said with a quick, stiff bow. The boy turned sharply, watching as the man who had saved him turned his back and just...left, walked out the door without a single glance back. A childlike voice deep inside him cried out in horror, and the boy wanted to grab hold of Leng's sleeve and almost beg him to stay, but he squashed that desire flat, stomping it repeatedly until it was dead.

"Come with me," the employer said, leading the way down a steep, almost ladder-like metal staircase.

 _Showing me his back._ The boy's eyes widened slightly in realization. _The same thing I did with the guard...going first not only gives me the opportunity to attack, but he would have to avoid any traps that he had set in advance and it would let me see where they are and how to get around them, as well as put me on the lookout for others. He knows that I don't trust him, so he's giving me a chance to. This guy is_ good.

"Tell me why you beat the guard with a skillet," the man said in his calm, cold voice.

"What gives you that idea?" The boy took a moment to respond, ensuring that his nervousness wouldn't show in his voice.

"Leng told me."

 _That traitor,_ the boy thought, but for some reason, he couldn't find it in him to be angry at Leng for it. "If Leng told you that I did, he would have told you why. You would have wanted to make sure that I'm not some unstable psychopath, teetering on the brink of a breakdown."

To his utter surprise, the man turned stepped off the ladder-stairs and turned to face him, his eye glinting. "Very good," he said, and there was no doubting the smile in his voice.

The boy tilted his head. "That was a test?"

"Of course," the man replied, beginning to walk again and leaving the boy to follow. "One of the reasons I chose you is because you question things."

"What are the other reasons?"

"I'm sure you've guessed at them. Why don't you tell me what you think." It wasn't a question. The boy took a breath and let it out slowly. "Neither of us like authority, and you're a criminal. Having a goody two-shoes for an apprentice wouldn't bode well."

"Excellent. Go on."

The boy's voice grew very quiet. "I'm not afraid to be violent if it means getting what I want."

The man turned to face him, his eye gleaming with satisfaction. "Perfect." He led the way into a large, open room. Underground, the boy guessed, given the long flight of stairs and the heavy darkness, barely scratched by the naked bulbs that dangled from the ceiling, giving off dim orange light.

"No sunlight anywhere. You a vampire?"

The man stopped in his tracks but didn't turn. "Pull your head out of the clouds," he growled.

The boy looked up at the ceiling. "Don't see any clouds in here." He knew that mouthing off to a man who could so easily overpower him was dangerous, stupid even, but it was vital to him that he show no fear.

"What's your name?"

The boy raised his eyebrows. "Leng told you that I possibly beat a man to death with a skillet but he didn't tell you my name? Now _that_ I don't believe."

"Tell me your name," the man ordered, turning to face him and looming over him.

"Tell me _yours,_ " the boy countered. "I have a right to know who it is I'm working for, perhaps even more so than you do to know your apprentice. You've been watching me for a while now. You know about me. Leng's told you everything he knows. You have to give a little to get a little, isn't that how the saying goes?"

The man folded his arms over his chest. "My name is Slade."

" _Spade_?" The boy was barely able to contain a laugh. "Like the card suit or the shovel? I don't know what kind of suck-ass villain you are if you named yourself after a shovel, but—"

" _Slade._ I said Slade." Slade stepped close and leaned in, his single cold eye narrowing to a menacing slit. "And I'll warn you now, boy, I do not take kindly to mockery. Now, _what is your name_?"

"I don't know."

"You don't...know," Slade repeated, letting each word fall slowly and deliberately into the air.

Even though he knew that he shouldn't, that it was a monumentally bad idea, the boy decided to see just how far he could push. "I'll explain, and I'll use small words so you can understand."

Slade's single eye widened in a combination of anger and disbelief.

"I know the name that my parents gave me," the boy said, his stomach tense with nerves as he looked up into Slade's face with what he hoped was fearlessness. "But that is not _my_ name. Let's use you as an example. Your parents didn't name you Slade, unless they were the coolest people ever—doubtful, given your career choice. See, you _chose_ the name Slade because it sounds ominous, because it fits you. Your real name is probably Skippy or something like that."

If Slade's ears were visible, the boy was sure that steam would have been gushing out of them. He braced himself, certain that Slade was going to attack him, but instead he folded his arms over his powerful chest and looked coldly down at the boy. "Why don't you tell me _your_ name, then." It wasn't a question.

The boy considered this carefully. He wanted a name that meant something, of course...and almost as soon as the thought occurred to him a single word came into his mind. Something small, but could cause devastation if pushed too far... He met Slade's glare unflinchingly. "My name is Trigger."

* * *

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE: I already know about Slade's origin, and I know that in the comics he is Slade Wilson AKA Deathstroke.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

To say that things were tense over the next few days would be the understatement of the millennium. Trigger rarely saw Slade, but when he did he could always feel a subtle anger radiating off of his master, like the masked man was biding his time and thinking up the perfect way to punish Trigger for his earlier sass. Trigger himself spent most of his days working out, trying to line his skinny frame with muscle; Slade had made a point of stressing that Trigger could expect to be fighting some ruthless opponents in the near future.

And whenever he was training himself, he could always see Slade silently watching him from a distance, and it freaked Trigger out considerably more than he would ever admit to anyone. He could see him now as his arms burned with the effort of pull-up after pull-up, the tall and muscular silhouette back-lit by the dim orange bulbs in the ceiling. Slade's single eye gleamed at him and Trigger looked away, doing his best to hide the nervous twitch that he felt spasm across his sweaty face. Exhausted shudders fluttered through his wrists, forearms, biceps, and torso as he struggled upward and paused, body tense and muscles tight as he rested his chin on top of the bar.

"Trigger," Slade said, stepping out of the shadows.

 _Ever-dramatic,_ Trigger thought, squirming around until the bar was under his arms, supporting him as he relaxed and let himself hang in the air. "What is it?"

Slade eyed him levelly. "Look behind you."

Trigger twisted his head to peer over his shoulder and instantly adrenaline streaked through his veins as _something_ cannoned toward him, fast and unstoppable as a derailed train. To say that it ran wouldn't quite be correct; though its legs moved with the expected motion, its footfalls were soundless, like those of a projection rather than reality. Still, the fight-or-flight instinct made Trigger scramble upright onto the barn, crouching precariously on it and preparing himself to jump. He would find out in just a second if this was a trick or a true foe.

It jumped for him. He jumped for it. Momentum and height gained from leaping off the bar, Trigger's sneakered foot came stomping down squarely between its shoulders and shoving it back toward the ground. His arms pinwheeled through the air as he landed, staggering at a nearly-unbalanced run before he was able to skid to a stop and turn around to stare at his adversary.

It wore a uniform that looked like a thrift-store ripoff of Slade's; the copper and black mask was wrong, with the orangey-brown contained into a circle that covered roughly eyebrow to mouth, but the only features that he could see were two pure white eyes that were narrowed into spiteful slits, and its black and gray uniform was not as detailed or dignified as Slade's. He didn't have time to make any further observations; the thing raced at him again and Trigger threw himself to the side at the last second, landing heavily as it barreled past.

 _I need a weapon,_ he thought frantically, looking wildly around. The pull-up bar had been dislodged from where he had wedged it between two dead machines that reminded him of the first computers; it wasn't designed to withstand someone jumping off of it. All it would take was another strong yank or two...

Trigger backed up until he stood underneath it, balancing lightly on the balls of his feet and waiting on tenterhooks as the thing turned back toward him, flexing hands whose fingers ended in wicked claws. If it managed to catch him, he would be gutted like a fish! The thought of his own scarlet blood seeping over the floor filled him with anger and he jumped, managing to catch hold of the bar. He planted his feet against one of the walls and used it to brace himself as he yanked downward as hard as he could. The bar came free with a terrible, earsplitting screech and Trigger fell to the ground, the bar clutched in his hands.

"Sloppy," Slade commented.

"Shut up," Trigger growled under his breath, getting up and gripping the bar like a baseball bat. "Come at me, then!" He snarled at the thing, his pale turquoise eyes burning into the narrow white glare. "Come on, you bastard!"

Unprovoked, the thing straightened up and flexed its hands again, and Trigger knew that it was sizing him up. He stared it down, taking in the broad, strong, but sloping shoulders and the thick biceps.

"Stop dawdling," Slade said.

"I don't rush into fights," Trigger spat back. "If you want this thing smashed into smithereens, get down here and do it yourself!"

Slade didn't respond to that and Trigger was glad for it. He tightened his grip on the metal bar and thought hard. What methods of attack would work best? Swinging it like a baseball bat would be stronger, but jabbing like with a spear would make it harder to block. Aim for the eyes, the joints, something to cause either crippling pain or sense-limiting injury. If the mask weren't made of metal, he could slam cupped hands down over the thing's ears (if it had them) and bust an eardrum...

It rushed at him again and he swung the metal bar low, aiming for the knees, but it jumped lightly over the makeshift weapon and slammed both feet into Trigger's chest. Pain shot through him as he flew backward and crashed into the wall. His head cracked against metal and his vision went white for the briefest of seconds, and when it cleared it was just in time to see the thing barely two feet from him, a fist rocketing forward. Fire exploded through Trigger's cheek as his head snapped to the side with the force and he knew that if he didn't move fast and think faster, he was going to be beaten into a catatonic pulp.

He snatched up the bar and jabbed it as hard as he could, one end punching fiercely into the thing's stomach. It doubled over, fists closing reflexively around the metal, and with a twist and a squeeze, broke it.

 _It's not human,_ Trigger thought with a thrill of fear. _No man can do this._ He clung tight to the end of the bar, the broken end of which was now quite sharp from the less-than professional severing, and narrowed his eyes in subtle satisfaction as he realized that it could now be used to cut as well as bludgeon.

"Do something," Slade commanded.

"Like what, make you some popcorn?" Trigger snapped back, ducking as the thing swung at him again. He didn't know any martial arts, but he had been in enough fights for food and dominance to be versatile in combat. Unprofessional, yes, but effective. He faked a swing to the right and the thing fell for it, lunging to the side—and right into the pole that came crunching sickeningly into the temple. Sparks flew and there was the shrill shriek of metal on metal.

"You're mine," Trigger growled. He flipped the bar in his hand and stabbed the sharp end into the thing's head again and again until smoke began to billow up out of the inward-crumpling 'skull'. Sweat streaked down his bare torso, hoodie temporarily discarded for the rudely interrupted workout. When the robot didn't move anymore, he glared up at Slade, not letting go of the broken pull-up bar as he raked his limp brown hair back out of his face. "Are you happy?"

"No," Slade responded coldly, clasping his hands behind his back. "That was poorly executed and lasted much longer than it needed to. You spent more time staring than fighting."

"I was under the impression that you wanted me to train myself," Trigger responded scathingly. "That's what I was doing."

"When you're working for me, you won't always have warning before you have to fight," Slade responded just as angrily. "You're lucky I gave you warning at all."

"Oh, yes," Trigger snarled. "I'm so lucky that you sent that robot to attack me. Let me get into proper groveling position!"

Slade stalked slowly, threateningly toward Trigger, looming over him with a freezing eye narrowed in barely-restrained rage. "You'll want to watch your tongue, boy," he growled in what was barely more than a whisper.

Trigger glared up at him before moving to walk past Slade, but Slade grabbed his upper arm, long fingers almost completely encircling it. Master and apprentice stared at each other for a moment that seemed to stretch on forever before Trigger yanked his arm away. "Maybe next time you'll program the robot to attack me more often—it stood there just as much as I did." Fourteen years of instinct expected that Slade would backhand him into next Tuesday, but he didn't. He just watched Trigger through that cold narrow eye.

Trigger was the first to look away, turning his back on Slade and stalking back toward the place where the pull-up bar used to hang. He looked down at the broken half in his hands and frowned; the way it had been twisted and snapped in two meant that it would be impossible to repair. He picked up his crumpled hoodie from the floor and pulled it back over his sweaty torso, drawing the hood over his head. It was hotter than hell with the jacket, but he felt bizarrely safer with it on. He jogged across the dark expanse of Slade's lair and began to scramble up the makeshift climbing wall he had constructed from various bits of debris and broken machines. He scaled it within a matter of moments and perched at the top, watching Slade walk away with the focused, determined stride of a predator. It looked like he was stalking something...

Several hours had passed and Trigger hadn't moved from his spot at the top of the climbing wall. It was his safe place, hard to climb but sturdy enough to sleep on; he spent the nights at the top.

"Trigger," Slade called up to him.

He scooted to the edge and looked down, grateful that despite everything else, Slade allowed him privacy.

"I have a mission for you."

Trigger grabbed the rope that he had tied to a hook in the ceiling several feet away and pulled the hems of his sleeves up over his hands to protect them from burning as he slid down, gripping the rope tightly between his feet. "A mission?"

"Yes," Slade said levelly. "Your first."

"What do you want me to do?"

"You'll be starting small," Slade informed him calmly. "Petty thievery, just enough for me to judge your skills without the danger of severe ramifications if you're caught"—his eye narrowed—"which I fully expect you not to be." He pointed with a gloved finger to where a messenger bag and a folded piece of paper were resting on the ground. "You'll find what you need in there."

Trigger walked over to the bag and picked it up by the shoulder strap, unbuckling the top to peer inside. He withdrew a semi-automatic pistol and a large black pocketknife. He looked up at Slade and raised an eyebrow. "No fancy costume?"

"As of now," Slade replied, "you'll be operating indiscreetly. If you're captured, you hold your silence—again, things will go very, _very_ poorly for you. Be careless and see."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

"Of all the possible places a criminal could have sent me," Trigger grumbled to himself, curling his fingers in the chain-link fence, "he tells me to walk past the jewelry store, past the banks, past the tech centers, past every place with a damn cash register, and has me go to the dump. What a guy." He tipped his head back and looked around, his movements leisurely but his eyes wary. Were there dogs? He was faster than most adults, but he wasn't so stupid to think that he would be able to outrun a dog, especially one that had been trained to attack intruders.

On the plus side, there were no security cameras, and the total silence around him assured him that there was a convenient lack of machinery being operated. The last thing he needed would be to be discovered by a construction crew (even though the idea of a construction crew in a dump was practically an oxymoron). Trigger ran his tongue slowly over his teeth, thinking. Climbing the fence would be faster, but people would also be able to see him from further away—and scaling it again as an escape route could be a hazard if he was chased.

He slipped the knife from the messenger bag and stuck it into the pocket of his gray hoodie, making sure that the blade's safety catch was off. He scuffed at the ground with the heel of his battered shoe and was pleasantly surprised to find the ground soft and loose, like there had been a prior hole only recently filled in. Trigger dropped to his knees and began clawing at the dirt, shoveling it out with his hands. In a matter of minutes he had a hole large enough to squeeze through, and he flattened himself onto his stomach and wriggled into the junkyard.

"Nice of Slade to include pictures," he said to himself, taking the hastily-folded list from his pocket and scanning it. "What the hell is a titanium MRC13-class modulator anyway, and what makes him think I'd find one here? Sounds more like a part on a spaceship than something that someone would throw away..." He shoved the list back into his pocket and walked cautiously forward, turquoise eyes never settling in one spot for more than a second as they swept the piles of garbage for not only what he was supposed to steal but for possible hiding places as well.

"He never said that I had to find _everything_ on the list," Trigger murmured, touching one of the folds with the tip of his index finger. "Of course, he just might kill me if I come back without them, but..." Suddenly, he found himself thinking of Leng. How nice would it have been to serve the compassionate man who had pulled him out of hell instead of a masked man with an underground lair and robots at his disposal? He got an idea and ducked into the safety of a doorless old Jeep, crouching low on the floor of the backseat; he needed some cover while his eyes were occupied. "Please have given me a phone," he said to nobody as he searched every pocket of the messenger bag. "Please don't have sent me in here completely on my own...aha!" He yanked a cell phone out of a pocket on the inside. "Disposable. Nice touch, Mister Slade." He dialed Leng's number and held the phone to his ear.

 _Ring...ring...ring...ri-_

"Hello?" Leng sounded cheerful, if a little tired.

"Hey, Leng," Trigger said, looking around the dump and smiling softly in satisfaction as he saw that he was still totally alone. "What's a titanium MRC13-class modulator?"

"A _what_? Who is this?" There was a scrape, as though Leng stood up so quickly that his chair skidded backward across the floor.

"It's Trigger," Trigger said, then realized that Leng didn't know his chosen name. "Slade's apprentice."

"Trigger," Leng said slowly, as though testing the name. "I like it," he commented after a moment had passed. "Why are you looking for an MRC13 modulator, though?"

"I don't know," Trigger said, keeping his voice low. "I don't even know what it is."

"On a mission?"

"You could say that. I'm in a junkyard right now." Trigger edged slowly out of the Jeep. "What does this modulator look like?"

"Cone-shaped," Leng responded. "A new one would be about a metallic silver chrome color, with a sort of power-gauge on the side. Roughly the size of a small duck, I think."

"Do you usually use poultry as units of measurement?"

Leng laughed. "Smartass."

"And proud," Trigger responded, feeling a smile of his own tug at the corner of his mouth. "Another question for you: what's a Reid's Relocator?"

"Invented by Doctor S. Reid, about the size of—"

"A chicken?"

"A tennis shoe," Leng said. "Full of dials and knobby things. I'll see if I can send you a picture. Anything else you need to know about?"

"Just about everything on this list," Trigger replied in exasperation. "He couldn't have made it easy for me, could he?"

Leng didn't answer.

"I need to know about sector torches, chemical mutators, a luminous module—wait, isn't that just a light?"

"He's testing you," Leng responded. "Standard lightbulb."

"Slade is an _asshole,_ " Trigger grunted. "Is there anything more pretentious than saying 'luminous module' instead of a _lightbulb_?"

Leng laughed nervously, and Trigger imagined him looking around as though to make sure that there was nobody nearby. "Anything else?"

"Displacement coder?" Trigger squinted at the list. "Slade has rather bad handwriting—it looks like a drunk spider decided to figure-skate across the paper. Very crawly."

"Trigger, is there anything else?"

"No, I don't think so. Most of the stuff on here looks pretty easy to find, as long as I know what it is. Thank you, though."

"You let me know if that changes," Leng said.

"I will."

"I'll send you pictures of the things you asked about."

"Again, thank you. You're a lifesaver." Trigger hung up and slipped the phone back into the messenger bag, into a pocket where he could grab it easily if he needed to, and began to prowl through the piles of garbage heaped haphazardly over the dry, dusty ground. "Hell, there's everything from cars to broken dolls here..."

There was a high-pitched bark from behind him and Trigger whipped around, heart in his throat, but then his tense shoulders relaxed as he saw the dog that was bounding toward him. It was a puppy, splotchy brown-and-white, with ears that stood straight up but flopped forward at the tips. "Hey, baby," Trigger cooed, crouching and holding out a hand. The puppy raced closer and closer until it was able to fling itself at Trigger, jumping into his arms and covering his face with soft, sticky baby licks. Its soft little body vibrated with excitement. "Ohhh, you're so cute," Trigger told it, scooping it up and cuddling it close against its chest. "What's your name, buddy?" His fingers searched through the shaggy fur on its neck, looking for a collar, but finding nothing more than an unmarked piece of leather held together with a strand of twine. "Junkyard puppy, huh?"

The puppy whined deep in its small chest and licked his cheek twice before shoving a tiny, wet black nose into his ear and snuffling loudly.

"Gah! Don't do that!" Trigger held the puppy away from him and its small paws churned at the air as though trying to run back into his arms. He couldn't bear the devastating cuteness in the pitiful stare it gave him and he hugged it. "It's okay. I forgive you, buddy." He scratched the puppy's ears. "Think Slade would want a dog?"

The puppy wagged its tail so hard that Trigger partially expected it to fly off and away into the cloudy sky.

"Aw, probably not," Trigger said with a sigh, tapping its little black nose. "Slade sucks the fun out of everything, doesn't he? Yes he does!"

The cell phone rang in his bag and he snapped it open before it could ring more than once. "Hello?"

"Put down that damn mutt before I send you back to that orphanage," Slade growled.

Trigger's heart leaped into his mouth and he quickly set the dog down, where it began jumping around his legs, demanding to be picked up again. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I've just..."

"I don't want excuses," Slade snarled. "Do your job, Trigger, or you will suffer."

"Got it." Trigger hung up the phone and bent down to rub the pup's ears. "Sorry, buddy. I have to work now."

Trigger ground his teeth together in frustration as he searched through the piles of junk that covered the ground, picking his way carefully through the labyrinth of smashed cars, broken electronics smashed beyond recognition, searching for whatever was on the list as well as something that might be able to help himself—in what way, he didn't know what, but he had a feeling that he would know it when he saw it.

The puppy barked and chased after him, tail still wagging a mile a minute as it bounced erratically around his knees, still wanting to be held. "Can't play with you now," Trigger told it, glancing down at the wiggling brown and white furball. "Slade's watching me—I don't know how, but he is. Fun-sucker." He didn't particularly care if Slade heard him. A gleam of white caught his eye and he turned toward it, eyes lighting up—wedged between a pair of old shoes and a tire was an expertly carved skull mask. He picked it up and examined it; other than smelling like an entire forest of feet, there was nothing wrong with it. There were even holes punched in the sides for a string to hold it onto someone's head. Trigger thought for a moment before carefully pulling the string out of his hood and threading it through the punctures. He fastened it onto his face and wrinkled his nose; the mask reeked, but he could deal with far more discomfort. He looked back at the puppy, who yelped in fear and raced away with its tail between its pumping legs.

"Bye," Trigger muttered.

* * *

The sun was low in the sky by the time he found everything on Slade's list—everything, that was, except for a drill with a twist bit. Which, if Slade really needed, he could just go out and buy, Trigger thought. His feet felt like he had walked them down to the bone, and he was still sore from his fight with the robot, but he had been able to talk to someone who was kind to him and hold a puppy, so the day wasn't a bad one.

Yet.

Trigger turned the corner and found himself face to face with the biggest German Shepherd he had ever seen. The beast was already in attack mode, with its lips pulled back far enough to expose pink-black gums all the way around its teeth—no, its fangs. The thick, tawny fur was standing on end at almost perfect right angles to its body and a deep growl rumbled forth from its powerful chest.

"Shit," Trigger whispered. He knew enough from his time on the streets that running would only provoke the dog to chase him, and there was no way that even the Flash could get away from _that_ canine monstrosity. _Don't panic_. He stood still as a stone as the dog continued to snarl at him, keeping his arms at his sides and averting his eyes—staring dead on would be perceived as a challenge.

The dog began to stalk toward him, leaving tracks about as big as Trigger's palm. It kept growling.

"Back off!" Trigger made his voice as deep and intimidating as he could, still not looking the dog in the eye. He remembered the gun that he had taken from the messenger bag and tucked into the waistband of his jeans and began to slowly, slowly move his hand toward it. If it attacked him, he was going to shoot it. As much as he didn't want to, his own life was a higher priority to him.

Reaching for the gun was a mistake. The dog barked once, a sound that would have made even a grown man flinch away in fear, and charged. Trigger pulled the gun and fired, but the kick was much stronger than he anticipated and the gun bucked in his hands, missing the dog by several inches. Before he could even think of firing again, it leaped and landed heavily with its paws on his chest, and its terrifying teeth scraped off the mask as it tried to bite. Trigger jerked up one arm, instinctively trying to protect his throat; if the dog got hold of _that,_ he was going to die on his first mission. That _had_ to be Number One in the book of Stupidest Villain-Apprentice Deaths. With his other arm he managed to heave the dog off of him, and that was when the second gunshot rang out.

Trigger's head snapped to the side and he saw a portly man in overalls stained with engine grease running toward him, a .22 in his meaty hands.

 _I am_ not _getting shot today!_ Trigger snatched the knife from his belt and slashed at the dog, opening a long red gash in its shoulder. It gave a high-pitched yelp that tugged at Trigger's heartstrings, but he turned tail and began to run, hoping that he had hurt it enough so that it couldn't chase him as he sprinted desperately toward the fence.

Another shot rang past his ear and he weaved, trying to throw off the man's target. "Dammit!" He leaped over the hood of a red car that looked like it had lost a demolition derby and landed in a stagger, the heavy messenger bag slamming against his thigh and hip and nearly sending him offbalance. He threw himself around the corner and another dog jumped at him. Trigger twisted to the side just in time for the dog to avoid crashing into him dead-on, but it managed to tear through the hoodie string, sending the skull mask clattering to the ground. Trigger swung wildly with the knife and hit something, but he didn't stop to see where. The man's shouting voice was growing ever louder and he had to get through that fence before he was caught and killed. He was building up to a sprint again when the dog barrelled into his legs, tangling them with each other.

Trigger fell to the ground, his hand instinctively releasing the knife so that he wouldn't land on the blade. The dog's teeth sank into his cheek and it began to shake its head as though trying to tear his entire face off. Trigger lashed out and his fists struck the dog soundly in the nose and throat, almost simultaneously. It released him and he kicked, landing two solid blows against its ribcage before he scrambled to his feet and ran for his life. Hot wet blood streamed down his face and his throat burned as his pulse hammered in his head, jarring his vision with every step.

He could see the fence and renewed his efforts, the bag pounding harshly against his leg. He yanked the bag over his head and threw it as hard as he could. It sailed over the barbed wire spirals at the top of the fence like it was launched from a catapult. Trigger pushed off the ground hard, hitting the chainlink at full speed and scrambling up it too quickly to feel the pain as the rust tore into his palms and the barbed wire ripped through his hoodie and the pale skin underneath. He didn't bother to climb down, just let go and landed hard but on his feet. A third shot ruffled his hair and he ducked instinctively, terror spiking through his blood and sending his heart humming, the individual beats no longer distinguishable from each other. He snatched up the messenger bag and took off, hearing the fence rattle as the dogs hit it. The man's enranged shouts met Trigger's ears but he didn't stop running, he didn't stop tearing over the ground like hell itself was on his heels, because every step that carried him away gave him another second to live.

The clouded-over sky had broken open as he ran, a cannon-blast of thunder making him look desperately over his shoulder in terror as he thought that the man from the junkyard was somehow still chasing him. The rain herded people off the streets and Trigger was alone as he ran, distantly stunned by his own stamina, but he suspected that as soon as he was truly safe he would fall over and be unable to walk for a week. Blood still poured down his face and he was alarmed by just how much there was, the rain diluting it as it soaked into his collar and mingled with his sweat.

He stumbled through the streets until he found Leng's apartment building, but he didn't stop there—he doubted that he would be _able_ to stop as long as he was still out in the open. Something caught his eye and instinctively he swerved toward it, only to realize that it was one of Slade's robots, almost identical to the one that had attacked him. He almost turned away but it tilted its head back in an impatient 'come on' gesture and he staggered toward it. It reached out a clawed hand and snatched the bag from him, slinging it effortlessly over its own sloping shoulder before bounding off. Liberated from the weight, Trigger did his best to keep pace with it as the pair of them bolted through the shadows and alleys of the streets, heading slowly but surely to safety.

Trigger almost fell through the door and stumbled into one of the pools of weak orange light, thoroughly miserable. He had almost certainly failed his mission; not only had the dogs bitten him, but he had been shot at and nearly killed. Slade _would_ kill him, he was sure, as soon as he stopped looking through the messenger bag. Every nerve felt like it was stretched to the breaking point, growing closer and closer to snapping as he stood dripping wretchedly onto the cold concrete floor, the blood from his face soaking his collar.

"Trigger," Slade said after what felt like another three hours had passed.

Trigger looked up.

"Come here."

Trigger walked slowly forward, his mind moving as quickly as his feet did not. _Submissive,_ his brain screamed. _Be submissive, apologetic, know what you did wrong—there's a chance he might not kill you then. The tactic's worked before, remember?_

 _But don't you dare grovel,_ snarled another voice from deep inside. _Die on your feet._ He stopped in front of Slade and, steeling himself, looked straight into the single cold eye. There was another unnerving thing about that mask other than the anonymity it provided; Trigger was completely unable to judge any facial movements to determine Slade's mood.

"Only a dog leaves that sort of mark," Slade observed, tilting his head to the side and studying the gash on Trigger's cheek. He didn't stand up. "And you were shot at."

Trigger felt his eyes widen before he could stop the flicker of motion. "How did you know?"

"I kept tabs on you," Slade responded. "You were seen."

Even though he knew it wasn't a question, Trigger felt he had to answer. He lowered his head and mumbled, "Yes, sir.?"

Slade stood up, slow and measured. "You recall that I told you that you were _not_ to be seen?"

Trigger swallowed hard and raised his chin. "Actually, your exact instructions were not to be _caught_ and that's not always the same thing as being seen."

Slade stared at him and when he spoke, Trigger could have sworn that there was the hint of a smile in his level tone. "That's true." He looked down at the messily folded piece of paper in his hand, deliberately taking his time to smooth it out. "I'm impressed that you knew what all these items were, and that they even _could_ be found in a dump." He began to walk past Trigger.

Trigger swallowed again. "You have Leng to thank for that," he said, voice barely more than a whisper.

Slade stopped, but he didn't turn. "What was that?" He asked, a hint of danger in the query.

Trigger closed his eyes. "You have Leng to thank," he repeated. "I didn't know the first thing about...what was on the list."

He heard the heavy tread of Slade's boots as they came closer, stopping just behind him. "Is that so."

"Yes sir," Trigger whispered, bracing himself for the blow that was sure to come. Where would it happen? The head? Square in the center of his back? A...a knife across the throat? He had never known anything but violence and now that he had failed violence was sure to come again. He could feel his exhausted body starting to tremble again, this time from fear rather than exertion; surely a man smart enough to build robots would have no trouble thinking up ghastly forms of punishment.

He nearly jumped out of his skin as Slade put a hand on his shoulder.

"You give credit where credit is due," Slade said calmly. "Admirable, Trigger." There was a slight pause. "Go and get that bite looked at. Two doors down, end of the hallway at the left."

Trigger stumbled away from him, mind blank with shock. Slade hadn't hit him. Hadn't so much as touched him, other than lightly on the shoulder...there were no threats. He hadn't even raised his voice! His feet carried him down the route Slade had mentioned and found a simple examination table in the center of the room, illuminated by a brilliant white light coming from what looked like a surgical lamp.

"Hello, Trigger."

"Leng?" Trigger asked in confusion. "What are you doing here?"

"That looks bad," Leng said, avoiding the question as he gestured to Trigger's face. "Might need stitches."

"Are you a doctor?"

"At one point," Leng said. "Please, sit." He sighed when Trigger didn't move. "You know that I won't hurt you," he assured gently. "Come on."

Slowly, Trigger moved to the table and perched on the edge, squeezing the corner with his fingers to quell the nervous tremor in his hands.

"Are you all right?" Leng asked, his forehead furrowing in concern as he carefully dumped a harsh-smelling chemical onto a gauze pad. Trigger knew that he wasn't referencing the dog bite.

"I'm not sure—shit! That hurts!"

Leng gave him a tiny, rueful smile. "Antiseptic always does. Sorry." He dabbed carefully at the blood and Trigger did his best not to jerk away as fire streaked through the slash. "What were you saying?"

"He didn't hurt me," Trigger said slowly. "Didn't even yell. Was he...angry at all?"

Leng glanced up, brown eyes holding turquoise for the briefest of moments. "Why do you ask?"

"Well—I failed, didn't I? I was seen, and even though Slade just said not to get caught, getting seen is almost as bad. I didn't argue with him because I don't know what he'd do if I did, but I can talk to you. I trust you." He couldn't remember the last time he had said those words to anyone, if ever he had at all.

Leng's smile became a little more real. "Thank you for that. Hang on to that thought for just a second—you need stitches and I've got to numb the area, or otherwise this is going to hurt worse than the bite itself."

Trigger nodded, watching as Leng readied a syringe and tapped the barrel to get the air bubbles out. He gritted his teeth and averted his eyes as he felt the prick of the needle before a complete lack of feeling spread through his face. He didn't say anything else as Leng's gloved fingers deftly prepared a suture and began to stitch the wound closed.

"Do you know if whoever shot at you got a good look at your face?" Leng asked quietly. "If he didn't, he might just think that you were a petty thief. If he did see what you look like, there's a chance he could report you to the police." He shook his head as Trigger opened his mouth to speak. "Don't talk, just listen. Of course, you could have as valid a case as he does, if he shot at you and his dog bit you."

Trigger made a face, trying to think of anything besides the faint tugging sensation of thread pulling his skin closed. He thought he might vomit if he did.

Leng severed the string and put the suture down, removing his gloves and gripping Trigger by the shoulders. "Trigger, I know this isn't much comfort, but I promise you on everything that I hold sacred that as long as you do what Slade says, no harm will come to you."

Trigger nodded, but a tiny thought persisted in his mind: _what if I disobey?_


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

Trigger was very cold. His suit did little to help with insulation; movement was the most effective thing for that but at the moment, he was hanging upside down from a beam on the ceiling. "The Bahamas don't happen to have a thermoscrambling chip, do they?"

"Focus, apprentice," Slade's growl came loud and clear through the com-device in Trigger's ear. "Do you need reminding?"

"No sir," Trigger said cheerfully, swinging down from the beam and landing in an almost soundless crouch. "Do _you_ need reminding about why it's so much easier to work in warmer environments?"

"Keep your sass to yourself," Slade snarled.

Trigger grinned beneath his mask. "Yes sir." It had been four months since Leng had saved him from the T.O.I., and in that time he had come to enjoy working for Slade. What wasn't to like about his new life? Slade had never raised a hand against him except in combat training, he wasn't being starved or made to drink dishwater, and best of all, he was treated like an actual human being. He brushed his limp brown hair back off of his forehead and looked around. He had an hour to work with; he had already disabled the security cameras and now it was time to play a little game with the guards.

The cameras began to move again, their connection back online, and Trigger turned them off again with a single press of a button on the remote in his hand.

"What are you doing?" Slade asked, exasperated.

"If they think their connection is spotty, they're less likely to come looking for me," Trigger answered in a low voice. "Their heat's already out—they should be expecting other systems to flicker on and off. Otherwise they're stupid." Taking his master's silence as a go-ahead, he flicked the power a few more times before tucking the remote into the pocket on the side of his calf before beginning to creep toward the vault door. Making sure that the security cameras were indeed off and staying that way, Trigger drew the sword from the sheath on his back and used the razor-sharp tip to begin unscrewing the combination pad, setting it carefully onto the ground so it wouldn't clatter. He replaced the sword and took out a Swiss Army Knife from the small leather pouch on his hip. Despite all of Slade's professional equipment, there was still nothing more helpful in a pinch than the red-cased tool. He flicked the scissors out and began to snip wires. The vault door creaked and swung open just enough for Trigger to squeeze his slender frame inside.

"And here we have our chip," Trigger murmured, pacing lightly forward and gazing down at an object the size of a fingernail resting securely in a glass case.

"Get it and get out of there." Slade told him.

Trigger nodded and shifted his balance onto one leg, unbuckling the pocket on the outside of his left calf and withdrawing a slingshot and a crushed bullet. Sliding the bullet into the leather pad, Trigger gripped the handle, drew back, and fired. The glass shattered and before the fragments had finished smashing to the floor, Trigger had grabbed the chip and bolted. As he ran, he unhooked the bullwhip from his belt, flew up a metal staircase, and snapped the leather so that the tongue coiled around the same bar he had dropped from. The alarm had barely begun to shrill by the time Trigger had scrambled up the whip, resecured it at his belt, and kicked his way through a ceiling panel. He pressed his stomach to the bottom of the air vent he came in through and began to army-crawl through the ducts, hissing softly as the freezing metal seeped through his suit and made goosebumps prickle along his skin.

"Your speed is improving," Slade noted.

"I learn from the best," Trigger replied. He squirmed out of the air vent and dropped to the ground, not bothering to replace the grating he had removed earlier. "The getaway is clear?"

"So long as you hurry," Slade answered.

Trigger began to run, practically flying through the corridors. A guard turned the corner and raised his gun, but he didn't have time to so much as aim before Trigger's steel-toed boots cracked against his kneecaps, sending him down with a scream. It took barely another second for Trigger to neatly jog the man's memory with the butt of his gun before he sprinted away again.

"Where you running?" Demanded a voice from behind him.

"Straight to jail," replied another.

Trigger stopped and turned to see five people—barely older than he was—standing in the hallway with almost rehearsed poses. "I know you," he said, raising an eyebrow. "A wanna-be superhero, a failed science experiment, two alien prostitutes, and..." His eyes landed on a boy with solidly green skin and pointed ears. "And a swamp demon. What a fun crowd! I'd love to stick around, but if your carnival act will excuse me, I have to go."

"Damn right you have to go," the robot-man growled, one of his blue and white arms converting neatly into what could be best described as a portable cannon. "You have to go _down._ "

Trigger cocked his head and smiled beneath the mask. "Correction, Sparky. I have to go _up._ " He raised the gun to his shoulder and fired two rounds in quick succession, shooting the lights out and plunging the hallway into pitch darkness. Going up was a ruse: Trigger smashed through a glass pane with his shoulder and promptly threw himself out the window. There was a warehouse roof below him and he rolled smoothly forward, moving directly from a crouch to a run.

"Stop!" He heard the weirdos behind him giving chase and rolled his eyes; like he was going to give himself up just because he was told to. Besides, he had broken out of every jail cell he had been put into—his record was seven minutes and four seconds—and he doubted that the city prison would be more secure than something that Slade built. "Stop him, Slade's got another one!"

 _That_ stunned Trigger so much that he nearly tripped and fell. _Another one_?

One of the scantily-clad girls streaked in front of him, holding up a fist blazing with green light, the same color as her large eyes. Her long red hair hung to the middle of her back. "You will apologize for those insults," she said in a high voice.

 _Don't let them have anything to use against you—pretend you didn't hear that comment about Slade._ So Trigger laughed. "No I won't." He yanked the bullwhip from his belt and struck out with it, catching her around the waist and spinning her out of his way, ignoring her cry of pain. He saw their reflection in the glass window of a business in front of him and twisted neatly out of the path of a powerful sonic blast that made the roof beneath his feet shake. "Slade! Fight or flight?"

"Have I trained you to run from danger?" Slade asked calmly.

"When I can't overcome it, yes. These are anomalies and I don't know if I can take them on my own!"

"Then use your head, apprentice!" Slade snapped, and the connection went dead.

Trigger took this literally—the youth with the fancy costume and the cape jumped at him and Trigger grabbed him around the throat and headbutted him in the face, channeling an angry bull. Hoping to have broken his nose with that hit—his own head was throbbing because of it—he turned to run and was bowled over by a literal angry bull. Solid green and snorting, its hooves sent sparks flying as it pawed the metal roof with a bloodcurdlingly shrill scraping sound. Trigger scrambled to get up but before he could get further than all fours, he was slammed back down by a bony knee between his shoulder blades.

"Alien prostitute, am I?" A deadly calm voice snarled in his ear—it was the girl in the dark blue cloak.

"Aren't you?" Trigger asked innocently. Hearing pounding feet rushing toward him, he knew that he had only seconds. One of his hands was free and he snatched the knife from the sheath on his thigh and jabbed with it, opening a long but shallow cut on her thigh. She recoiled and he bucked beneath her, throwing her offbalance, before leaping to his feet and bolting. The green kid cut him off, changing his form from a bull to a large green dog. Teeth bared, ropes of saliva glistening from its slavering jaws, hackles standing stiffer than soldiers.

Trigger froze, heart jumping in his chest.

"Don't like dogs, kid?" The robot asked from behind him. The other four had formed a ring around him, trapping him. "Get bit when you were little?"

"Did you?" Trigger responded waspishly. "No, not a dog—you'd have to have been put through a ten-foot cheese grater to need that extensive of repairs. Or has some mad scientist let his pet project out to play?"

A blast from that cannon-arm shot at Trigger's head and he dropped to the ground. The blast hit the redheaded girl and knocked her out of the air.

"Cyborg!" The boy with the cape yelled and Trigger saw his chance. He whipped the sword from the sheath across his back and swung it like a baseball bat, making the others jump out of the way to avoid being neatly split in half. He leaped over the fallen alien girl and used their distraction to pull one last thing from a pocket on his suit: a smoke bomb. He smashed it on the ground and thick black clouds exploded forward, obscuring the entire roof as he darted away.

* * *

"I would appreciate it if you would let me know if there's a chance I'll be apprehended by Robin Hood and his band of Merry Mutants," Trigger snapped, dropping the chip into Slade's waiting palm.

To his astonishment, Slade laughed.

"Damn, so you _are_ capable of human emotion," Trigger mumbled.

"Did you know that his name _is_ Robin?" Slade asked, turning that weirdly expressionless eye on him.

Trigger shook his head mutely, taking off his mask. It had the consistency of tough plastic, covering his nose and mouth, but it was easy to breathe with it on and it would only flex outward: it lessened the probability of broken bones. It clattered slightly as he dropped it on the table and sank wearily down into the chair. "Who were they?"

"Nobody that you need to concern yourself with," Slade answered, examining the chip as he started to walk past the table.

"He was green, half of him was metal, and she was from space," Trigger argued back. "Tell me, Slade."

Slade stopped and turned his head slowly and Trigger imagined him raising an eyebrow beneath his mask.

"Please," Trigger amended. "They know you."

Slade gave what sounded almost like a noise of amusement and contempt, beginning to walk again. "We do have a history," he conceded.

"They said—" Trigger swallowed, running his fingers through his limp brown hair. "They said that you had 'another one.'"

Slade stopped for the second time. "Did they." It wasn't a question.

Trigger nodded very slowly. "Who are they?" He asked again, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Another one of what?"


	11. Chapter 11

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hello, my lovely readers! At the suggestion of user Kevlar Spirit, I'm going to try naming my chapters. So without further ado, I am proud to introduce you to...**

 **Chapter Eleven: Blue Hair Dye and the Girl Who Turned to Stone**

Trigger couldn't sleep that night. He hadn't expected to, after his run-in with the Freaky Five had left all manner of questions buzzing around his head. Another one of _what_? How did they know Slade? What was the history that his master had implied? He had pressed the issue but Slade had turned to him with an eye narrowed with anger, his powerful shoulders rigid and his hands clenching into fists, and Trigger had deemed it wise to shut up.

He lay at the top of the climbing wall, shifting restlessly from side to back to other side. They seemed a bizarre and unlikely collection of people: three aliens and a cyborg—it was only the youth in the mask and the short cape that didn't seem to have any sort of powers, though given the wiry strength of his limbs, Trigger suspected that he was a formidable fighter when it came to hand-to-hand combat, and there likely had to be something else given that the other four seemed to look to him for leadership.

The five had tried to stop Trigger, which by extension was trying to stop Slade. Were they vigilantes, or had he been right in his jab to Robin that he was a wannabe superhero? Had they all donned fancy costumes and taken the law into their own hands? He rolled onto his side again, staring angrily at the wall. He hated not having all the answers; frankly, it drove him crazy! He had to find out more.

Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and began to climb down the wall, feeling his way through the pitch darkness. He didn't know where Slade went at night. The corner of his mouth twitched as he wondered if Slade slept in a coffin or cemetery or somewhere similarly gloomy. Or maybe he didn't sleep at all and was some form of insomniac. The more Trigger thought about it, the weirder Slade became in his mind; in the four months that he had been apprenticed to the man in the mask, he had never seen him eat, sleep, drink...the list went on. Was he even human, or was he an even more advanced AI than his robots and the Cyborg?

"I have _got_ to get some air," he muttered, making his way toward the staircase more by memory than by sight. His head throbbed like it always did when there was a puzzle he just couldn't figure out, but when he eased the door open and saw a sliver of the star-freckled sky he felt better. He closed it softly behind him and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, tipping his head back and gazing up at the thumbnail-sliver of moon, thin as a hair. It was strange...he never realized just how little he had looked at the sky while he was imprisoned in the orphanage.

He put a hand on the metal drainpipe and a foot on the wall of the warehouse, climbing easily up the wall and pulling himself up onto the roof. The breeze ruffled through his hair and blew it back off his forehead, sending chills prickling along his scalp. He looked up at the stars through half-closed eyes, his mind blank and churning at the same time. The air helped clear his head and he wondered if there was a computer anywhere in the warehouse. Surely there was...he just had to find it.

* * *

"Let's see..." Trigger slid the chair further under the desk and propped his chin in his palm, blinking against the harsh white-blue light of the screen. "They _would_ call themselves the Freaky Five if they really were from a carnival, but that's not exactly an intimidating group title..." He tapped the keys and they clicked loudly in the darkness, making the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand up off his skin. He was acutely aware of how bright the screen was, and how he would be perfectly illuminated in front of it, as well as how just about anyone would be at an advantage if they approached him from behind; his eyes might not be able to readjust to the dark in time if they decided to jump him.

 _You're being stupid,_ he told himself harshly. _Who would try to jump you? You're not doing anything wrong._

 _But didn't you see how twitchy Slade got when you pressed for more information?_ Whispered another almost fearful voice in the back of his mind. _If he saw you sneaking around in the middle of the night, who knows what he would do to you?_

 _He wouldn't do anything, so shut up. I'm his apprentice,_ Trigger argued back. _He wouldn't hurt me unless I tried to stab him in the back. Ooo, that looks promising..._ He opened an encrypted file that was simply labeled "T.T." A document pulled itself up on the glowing screen and he began to read. "Teen Titans," he read. "Sounds better than the Five Freaks, that's for sure..." He scrolled down. "Profiles on all of them? Have a bit of a fascination, huh Slade?" Trigger's turquoise eyes flicked back and forth over the neat lines of type. "Robin. One of the Titans' founding members...leader of the current team, no special powers other than extreme versatility in many forms of martial arts..." There was a noise from behind him, a sort of bang and a scuffle, and Trigger closed the document and shut down the screen in a flash, ducking back into the shadows, but not before seeing one more thing: a picture of a young girl with large cobalt-blue eyes, long blond hair, and a crimson X printed over her face. There was a single word next to the photo: REMOVED.

 _Removed? From what?_ Trigger's mind began buzzing again as he slunk silently away from the computer, heading back toward the door, but changing his mind about halfway and creeping back toward the climbing wall. Probably for the best if he didn't wander around any more tonight, but a burning fire of curiosity was roaring to life inside him. Who was the girl? What was she removed from? Had she been a Titan? Why wasn't she now? Was she removed from the team? Why? Did Slade have ties to her? Why did he have profiles on a document on a computer? From the four months Trigger had been his apprentice, he had learned that Slade had an incredible memory—why did he feel the need to write descriptions down?

"I'm not sleeping tonight," Trigger groaned, lying down on his back and staring up at the ceiling that it was too dark to see.

* * *

The next morning found him walking the streets, not dressed in the black and ash-gray suit that he wore on missions, but still with his Swiss Army knife in the pocket of his jeans and the earpiece turned on, though he doubted that Slade was going to speak much today. Usually whenever his mysterious master had an assignment for him, he would hear about it within the first hour of climbing down from the wall...it had been four hours by the time Trigger set out, assuming that he had the day to himself. That had happened on occasion, and admittedly it was nice to have a break.

He stopped, the gleaming glass window of a hair salon catching his eye. No, that was wrong—it was the group of people inside that snagged his attention, abruptly and with a pain that he didn't recognize. Three women and two men stood in a little clump, almost shoulder to shoulder despite the wide open room, heads thrown back and shoulders shaking with laughter at some shared joke. Trigger stared, feeling a strange hollow in the pit of his stomach. They looked so _happy._ Why? What blissful joy did they have? He tilted his head to the side, brow furrowing as he tried to figure it out. There was no malice in their eyes, setting them apart from the guards at the orphanage. When _those_ creeps laughed, it was always at someone else's expense...but not here. Slade never laughed, so there were no answers coming from that front either.

One of the women, her black hair cut at an attractive jaw length, dug an elbow into one of the men's sides and said something to him with a playful and flirtatious wrinkle of her button nose and the five of them doubled over with laughter again, the man lightly shoving her shoulder and struggling to get words out through the gales of mirth that rocked his slim frame. The pit in Trigger's stomach deepened.

He walked in the door, but the people didn't register him over the happiness they shared. It was like there was an invisible wall between them. They were only ten feet away, but it might as well as been ten thousand miles, so different were the worlds that they lived in. Trigger looked around and picked up a small container of electric blue hair dye off the shelf to his left, studied it for a moment, then stuck it into the pocket of his jacket and walked out. The laughing people didn't notice, and he was glad; he didn't think he would be able to bear it if any of those sparkling eyes and brilliant, luminous grins had been turned toward him.

"And just what do you think you're doing?" Slade's normally calm voice was heavy with exasperation and Trigger could practically _hear_ him rolling his eye.

Trigger glanced up at him. "Call it a mad desire for a splash of individuality. I think blue's my color, don't you?" He turned back to survey his reflection, critically eyeing the thick streak of cobalt blue in his light brown hair.

The eyes of master and apprentice locked in the mirror as Slade stared at him. Trigger stared back. The silence stretched on to an almost uncomfortable degree before Slade turned around and walked away, and Trigger lowered his head to hide his grin, biting his lower lip as he fought back a laugh. He raised a hand absently and touched the jagged Y-shaped scar on his cheek, smile fading slowly. Slade may have given him a mask and a nifty suit, but Trigger was going to make his appearance his own.

* * *

"Trigger."

Trigger hooked his arms over the new pull-up bar and looked at Slade, feet dangling a good foot or so off the ground. "Sir?"

"There's going to be an explosion at the bank in one hour's time," Slade said, arms folded behind his back, feet shoulder-width apart. Everything about his posture and tone radiated dominance.

"Am I going to cause the explosion?" Trigger asked.

"With that ridiculous hair of yours, you'd be too easily identifiable," Slade scoffed. "No. You'll be nearby, watching the thief. The Titans are going to intervene, and you are going to study their tactics."

"You have this planned out quite well," Trigger observed.

Slade's eye narrowed. "Do you expect me to be careless?"

"No sir, I didn't mean it that way," Trigger started, but Slade cut him off.

"Of course you didn't," he said coldly. "Being careless is your job." He turned his back on his apprentice and strode away into the shadows.

Trigger stared after him, touching the jagged Y-shaped scar on his cheek. Slade never had let him forget how close to disaster that first mission had come... _He didn't mean it that way,_ reassured a little voice in the back of his mind. _Slade just doesn't want you to get caught or seen again._

Trigger crouched on a roof, the sun beating down on the back of his neck and burning hot against his scalp as he waited, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on the bank. "Any minute now," he murmured, exceedingly grateful that the black mask was easy to breathe in; if he had managed to hang onto the skull mask from the junkyard, he would have suffocated by now.

An explosion blew the entire front of the bank off and into the street with a terrific noise and a glorious burst of smoke and flame. Pedestrians ran screaming in every direction, panicked as ants when a foot crashed into their mound. Trigger shifted his position and squinted, then gaped in disbelief as the burglar emerged from the crushed stone and scattered rubble. A nine-foot concrete monstrosity with tiny red eyes stood outlined against the flames that licked at the edges of the hole, toothless mouth open in a thunderous roar. Fists the size of Trigger's entire ribcage hung at the thing's sides and its torso could have held four men with ease.

"A two and a half-inch wide streak of blue in my hair is too noticeable but _that_ isn't? What the _hell_ , Slade?" Trigger was tempted to jump from the roof and go closer, but before he could even straighten up, a familiar voice rang out.

"What're you gonna do with all that money, Cinderblock?" It was Robin.

"Use it on jail bond," answered the Cyborg.

"Impossible," said the swamp-demon, his green hair flashing in the sunlight. "This thing is a crime against humanity!"

"Polite group, aren't you," Trigger muttered.

"You know who else is a crime against humanity?" A new voice rang out, and Trigger swore as a skinny man with mint-green skin and a suit emerged from the fire, dwarfed next to Cinderblock's bulk. "That lovely little blonde who turned to stone!"

That struck a nerve, especially for the green kid. "Leave Terra out of this," he snarled, an animalistic growl in his voice as he took a step forward. Despite his small size, his rage was so formidable that even Cinderblock looked uncertain. "You never _met_ Terra!"

"What do you see, apprentice?" Slade's voice was quiet in his ear.

"The Titans are here," Trigger responded. "Cinderblock and the walking piece of toothpaste seem to be a pretty odd couple—I assume you told them both to hit the bank today."

"What else?"

"Who is Terra?"

" _What_?"

"They seem to be using her name as some psychological weapon," Trigger observed, watching the green kid's tense shoulders and shaking fists. "The Titans are furious—they're letting themselves get egged on. But if Cinderblock's friend never met Terra, how does he know about her? Why did she turn to stone?"

"Enough," Slade snarled, his voice barely more than a whisper. Trigger paused, confused—Slade sounded like he was about to snap just like the shapeshifter down there, who had just turned into a tyrannosaur and lunged at the little green man. He snatched his top hat off his balding head and jumped _inside_ it, disappearing with a loud popping noise and reappearing thirty feet away.

"Magician," Trigger noted. "Impressive one at that...Slade, you wanted me here for something more than observation and studying their tactics, didn't you?"

There was silence on the line, the earpiece buzzing quietly.

"Observation it is, then." Trigger settled down to watch, cataloging everything he saw and storing it away, _especially_ that little tidbit about Terra. It would be useful for when he had to fight the Titans for real the next time, an event that he suspected would be coming around very, very soon.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve: Memory Lane**

Dreams crept slowly but irresistibly through the night and Trigger was as able to escape his past as an insect caught in amber, doomed to be imprisoned by the suffocating power of nature. Memories hammered against his mind with the strength of hammers crashing down onto anvils, sparks of pain searing through his chest with every pulse of his heart as he fought the losing battle with himself. _Don't want to remember. Don't let those voices in. Go away...go away..._

 _He was seven years old, staring at the ground with furious tears stabbing at the backs of his burning eyes like swords. A guard shook him by the shoulders, thumb digging harshly into his collarbone while his ring finger and pinkie stretched well down the boy's upper arms. "You are_ worthless, _do you understand that?" The guard hissed into his face, a malicious smile in the barbed words. "You are flawed. You are stupid. Not even your own parents wanted you!" Angered by the defiance in the little boy's stubbornly set jaw, the guard gave him a harder shake. "Say it," he whispered._

 _"Bite me," the boy answered._

 _The guard didn't do that, but he did deliver a sharp punch to his stomach. Grabbing him by the hair to keep him from doubling over, the guard leaned in close to his ear. "This is what happens to brats who steal food and run away," he snarled. "Now say it, or I'll take you out for a smoke break."_

 _The boy didn't need reminding of what happened when that promise was fulfilled. His abdomen throbbing and the tears threatening to spill over, he struggled for air until he was able to gaspingly whisper, "Not even my own parents wanted me."_

Trigger pressed the heels of his palms against his tightly closed eyes, grinding his teeth together so hard that it was a wonder they didn't crack under the pressure as he prayed to any listening god for the memories to go away. But as usual, higher powers denied him and the vicious echoes of the past rammed harder and harder against his defenses, battering them down.

 _He was eleven years old, handcuffed and locked in solitary for his latest escape attempt. Thirst made him weak, his head pounding from dehydration and his throat so dry that it felt like he had been gargling sand. He had propped himself up against the wall, exhaustion settling in his limbs like someone had coated his bones with lead._

 _The tiny cat-flap on the bottom of the door rattled as a plastic bowl was pushed through. The weak light inside the cell glinted briefly off what could only be water. The boy scrambled over to it, eagerness overpowering his weariness as he crouched over the bowl and looked down at...dishwater. A weird and sudsy gray, it was opaque enough that he couldn't see the bottom layer of plastic._

 _"Drink it."_

 _He lifted his head in disbelief to see a guard watching him through the narrow gap set at about the right height for a pair of eyes to peek in. He shook his head._

 _"It's all you're getting." The guard said with a shrug. The flap slid shut._

 _The boy crawled back to the wall and leaned against it, shaking with rage. How could they treat him so inhumanely? Why didn't the law intervene and save the children here from this torture? The hours began to pass and he found himself staring at the bowl of water, his parched throat growing dryer with every second that ticked by. He pushed himself away from the wall, realizing that he would have to trade dignity for survival. He inched toward it, keeping his eyes on the door. If a guard came by, he wouldn't touch the bowl...the most he could do would be to suffer in solitude without the eyes of mockery lording over him. With a last glance at the door, he bent his face down to the grimy water and closed his eyes so he didn't have to see the condemnation on the face of his reflection as he began to drink, hands tied behind his back and tears pricking at his eyes as he felt lower than a dog._

Trigger hissed through clenched teeth, his face burning hot with humiliation even after all the years that had passed. He could still remember the foul, filmy taste coating his tongue. But what was even worse was the laughter and jeers of the guards when they found the empty bowl...the sneered words echoed in his ears and he pressed his hands over them, anger boiling in his stomach and threatening to spill over. But then, just when he thought that he would rather get it out by killing someone and spending the rest of his life in a real prison, in an orange jumpsuit...

 _"You're shaping up quite well," Slade said, straightening up and allowing Trigger to stand. He had been tossed about the room as per usual during combat training, but he had managed to land a few solid hits this time, and avoid most of Slade's attacks. But as usual, he had been caught and pinned in the end, flat against the ground with a knee in his back._

 _Trigger bit the insides of his cheeks to hide the smile that threatened to light up his face. "Really?"_

 _"You don't pose a threat," Slade told him, and Trigger cut him off._

 _"Of course I don't pose a threat to you," Trigger butted in. "You've been studying and training for longer than I've been alive, in all likelihood. I wouldn't_ expect _to pose a threat."_

 _"In a few years, though, you could become quite formidable," Slade added, an unreadable gleam in his single eye._

 _Trigger ducked his head to hide his smile, pleasure and pride squirming in his stomach in a sensation he had never before experienced. It was a bizarre and beautiful thing to have someone who recognized potential and who spoke on it. "You really think so, sir?"_

 _"You learn quickly," Slade told him. "Agile, clever..."_

 _Trigger rubbed his thumbs into his palms, his eyes glowing. "Thank you," he said sincerely. Nobody had ever before told him that he was good at anything._

These memories were more pleasant, and Trigger sighed with relief as his rigid shoulders relaxed. He closed his eyes to better focus on capturing that warm feeling of his master's words melting away a lifetime of abuse like a fire banishing snow. He delved eagerly into his memories, searching for more of that sensation; it was like a wonderful first high from a powerful drug.

 _He stood, panting, above the wreckage of three robots that had come at him simultaneously, clawed hands reaching for his throat and fingers straining to gut him like a fish. The reinforced gloves of his suit worked even better than he had hoped for; he could punch metal with all the strength he possessed and his hands barely felt a thing, and so he had used his fists to smash the thin-skulled robots to pieces, with the assistance of steel-toed boots and a sturdy concrete wall._

 _"Well done," Slade commented, and Trigger looked at him happily._

 _"Not so much standing around this time, huh?"_

 _"Not at all," Slade agreed. He stepped closer and surveyed the wreckage. "You were thorough."_

 _"I tried," Trigger answered, trying (and failing) to sound modest._

 _"And how does the suit feel?"_

 _Trigger rolled his shoulders back, feeling the cloth sliding across his skin. "It's a little big," he said after a moment._

 _Slade looked down at him with as close to amusement as a single eye surrounded by metal could come. "You'll grow into it, young man."_

Trigger let out a small sigh and closed his eyes, feeling almost—almost—content. Slade had saved his life by sending Leng to the T.O.I., and he had sent for Trigger specifically...he had seen potential. He had given him a place to live, food, training...Slade had given him a _life_ when death bared its teeth from all other sides. Despite his rough edges and moods, despite the occasional ominous remark or cryptic mission, Slade was his friend.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen: Taken**

The sun hung in the sky and seemed to lean into the blue abyss like an eager spectator in a stadium seat as Trigger stared down the Titans, sword in hand. They glared back at him, five pairs of eyes narrowed in anger and filled with something else that he didn't recognize, but he was sure he didn't like it.

"What do you think you're going to get from working with Slade?" Robin asked, his voice much quieter than the tones of confrontation should have been.

"Your tactics aren't gonna work on me. Don't you have somewhere to be, like an advertisement for hair gel?" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cyborg's mouth twitch like he was tempted to laugh. "Let me ask you a question in return. What do you think that you're going to get out of trying to talk to me?"

" _Fight them, Trigger,_ " Slade's voice hissed in his ear. " _Need I remind you about standing and talking_?"

For once, Trigger ignored his master, listening as Cyborg replied.

"Slade's dangerous, kid."

"You think I don't know that?" Trigger scoffed. "Is there a brain inside that metal skull of yours, or just a jumble of rusty gears?"

Cyborg's hands clenched into fists, but he controlled his temper and settled for a glower.

"You know it, but you don't realize it," said the girl in the blue cloak. "You have no idea what Slade is capable of, the lengths he will go to in order to get what he wants."

"Yeah, the dude's a lunatic!" The green kid piped up. The subtle rasp in his voice grated on Trigger's ears, and he snarled.

"What do you know, anyway?" He demanded, tightening his grip on his sword handle. "You're just a bunch of freaks that society rejected!"

"And you think that makes us different than you?" asked the girl in the cloak.

Trigger snarled, leaping at her. "I am _nothing_ like you!" He swung his sword, aiming to cleave her in two, but he was slammed off course as Robin tackled him, hitting him heavily in the side and landing on top of him when they crashed into the ground.

"Listen to me," he growled in Trigger's ear. "We can help you! You don't have to stay with Slade—you can get away from him."

"I don't _want_ to get away!" Trigger spat back. His hips bucked sharply and Robin was pitched to the side, and in that instant Trigger slithered out from under him and snatched up his sword from where it had fallen. He threw himself toward the air, all his weight behind his blade as he drove it down, meaning to impale Robin and stick him to the roof like a gruesome end to a murderous game of pin the tail on the donkey. He was again knocked away from his target by the red-headed girl, her large eyes blazing with emerald light.

"You will not touch him!" She said fiercely.

"You're right, that's _your_ job, space-slut."

"You watch your mouth!" Cyborg roared. He grabbed Trigger by the ankle and threw him, shot-putting him through the air and into the side of a building. The impact jarred his very bones and pain exploded through his side, but the cement-cracking moment of collision was largely absorbed by the suit. Trigger barely had time to lift his head from the rubble before a titanic green buffalo headbutted him squarely in the stomach, driving all the air from his lungs and smashing him straight through the wall. Adrenaline numbing his nerves, Trigger yanked the bullwhip from his belt and snapped it hard, the leather tongue curling around the buffalo's neck. He jerked it taut and the animal reared back onto its hind hooves, giving a gurgled snort as its forelegs stabbed helplessly at the air. Trigger pulled it tighter, choking the shapeshifter.

Black light enveloped him suddenly, pinning his left arm against his side while his sword arm managed to elude the magic bubble as the shapeshifter wriggled away. Trigger drew his hand back and whipped it forward, throwing the blade at the girl in the blue cloak. She dodged to the side, losing her concentration for half a second—but that half a second was all Trigger needed. Dropping to the ground, he grabbed a small bomb from the pocket on his belt and threw it at the redhead, timing it just right; it exploded right next to her, knocking her from the air. Her high scream added a nice compliment to the detonation.

The Titans regrouped and attacked in earnest this time and Trigger was forced backward, ducking and dodging and weaving to avoid the bolts of magic flung at him by the two aliens, while simultaneously trying to get out of the way of the green falcon claws that scored deep furrows on his mask, and at the same time struggling to block the combined attacks of Cyborg and Robin. He took more hits than he blocked as they drove him further and further down the street. He managed to land a solid kick on Robin's chest, launching him backward into the girl in the cloak, right as Cyborg swung at his head with enough force to knock a bus onto its side.

"Stop running," Slade hissed in his ear. "Fight back."

"A little _busy_ at the moment, sir!" Trigger snapped, leaping out of the way of a green burst of light that probably would have put a hole clean through his abdomen. "How about sending me some reinforcements if you want the odds to even out?"

"Talking with your boss?" Robin asked, coming in swinging with all the fury of a boxer and moving like he hadn't just taken a steel-toed boot to the ribs.

"Better than talking to you, Spiky," Trigger shot back. He ducked a kick that would have broken his jaw.

"One last chance," Robin growled, landing a solid hit in Trigger's abdomen and making him double over despite the protection of the suit. "You can leave Slade and be free, or be a slave."

Trigger swung around in a high and fierce kick, his heel slamming down into Robin's collarbone with a sickening _crrrrack_. Before he could get both feet down on the ground, however, a hand closed around his ankle and lower calf with a vicegrip. Cyborg yanked Trigger off his feet and jerked him into the air, wrapping one arm tightly around his waist and trapping his arms against his sides. Trigger struggled and thrashed for everything that he was worth, but for all the good it did it was like a fly trying to break free from a glass bottle. Cyborg's hand tightened on his lower leg and he wrenched it up and back. Wild pain shot through Trigger's thigh and a scream tore itself from his throat as the nerves in the muscle exploded with immobilizing fire. Almost instantly he was nearly overcome by the urge to vomit from the agony and Cyborg dropped him to the ground. Trigger struggled to his feet but his leg buckled underneath him and in that instant he knew that there was no way he could keep fighting.

"Congratulations," he snarled, trying to sound as fierce as he could despite the sick feeling in his stomach and the sweat beading on his pale face. "You won. Going to take my head as a prize? Mount it on a wall to celebrate your victory?"

"No," Robin said evenly, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at Trigger, his eyes hidden and emotionless behind the mask he wore. "But we are taking you."

And then something slammed into Trigger's head and the world spun into black oblivion.


	14. Chapter 14

**A note from the author:**

 _Over 1,000 views...this...this is surreal. I never dreamed Trigger would get this far. Thank you so much to everyone who's read the story so far. :) Love, Undiscovered_

 **Chapter Fourteen: Some Questions and Fewer Answers**

The first thing Trigger was aware of was the pounding in his head, a dull but heavy throbbing that pulsed in time with his heart, and that was quickly followed by a much sharper throb in his leg. He kept his eyes closed, reaching out with his other senses—he was strapped down at the wrists and ankles, with one strap over his chest and another securing his hips, and the bands were almost tight enough to cut off circulation. There was no way he was getting out of these by squirming, that was for sure... His gloves were still on, making it harder to determine what sort of surface it was pressed against his back, but from the subtle ache against his shoulders and back, he suspected that it was metal or cement.

"I don't care who that kid is, bringing him here was a big mistake," Cyborg growled from nearby, and Trigger nearly opened his eyes but caught himself just in time; if they thought he was still unconscious, they might keep their guards relatively down.

"We made a promise!" The green kid retorted sharply, the faint rasp in his voice making it easily identifiable. "Robin was bad enough, but after what happened to Terra we swore we wouldn't let Slade get anyone else!"

 _Robin? The kid in the mask...what do you mean, he was bad enough? And Terra...the Titans have a personal connection to her and by an extent, so did Slade..._

"I know what we said, but this guy is too far gone," Cyborg retorted. "He doesn't want to leave Slade: we should give him that! Let him wreck his own life!"

"Why are you so opposed to trying to help him?" Robin asked, his tone more reasonable than those of the other two.

"Does he look like he wants our help?" Cyborg demanded.

"Raven, what do you think?" Robin asked. "You can monitor emotions."

"To some extent," Raven replied dryly, and Trigger recognized her voice as that of the girl in the blue cloak. "He's definitely doing this of his own will, if that's what you want to know; there's nothing coercing him."

"Nothing magical, at least," Raven corrected. "We know that Slade is a master manipulator."

The word made something uneasy squirm in Trigger's stomach, but he squashed the feeling and strained his ears, listening hard.

"Please," said the high voice of the redhead. "I don't want to see another one of my friends turn to stone."

 _Terra turned to stone,_ Trigger thought.

"That boy in there is not our friend, Starfire," Cyborg responded, his deep voice almost agitated. "We don't even know his name!"

"We cannot let it happen again!" Starfire protested adamantly, and Trigger imagined her stomping a foot to emphasize the point.

"It's not likely to," Robin said, breaking the silence that had begun to stretch. "If he had any powers, he would have shown them as soon as we attacked—there are five of us and one of him, and with our range of abilities, not even I would bet on those odds, and Slade doesn't take stupid kids."

 _Smart boy,_ Trigger thought bitterly.

"Terra couldn't control herself, and that's how Slade got her," the green kid acknowledged, his voice losing its anger and becoming so profoundly sad that Trigger almost felt sorry for him. "By offering her control...but in the end, she let her power tear her apart, and turned herself to stone..." Even though the Titans clearly knew the story, strangely enough none of them objected to having it told again.

 _Turning herself to stone suggests she had some sort of geological telekinesis,_ Trigger suspected. _I don't see electricity or water control having that type of effect. The ability to move the very ground she stood on, if indeed that's what she can—could—do...that's formidable. If Slade said he could teach her control, does that mean that_ he _has powers I don't know about? If he wants me to become as versatile as possible in combat, surely he would have come at me with more than fists?_ His thoughts raced so quickly that they drowned out the Titans' rising voices until the door to whatever room he was in was opened so quickly that the handle bounced against the wall.

"He is scared, not dangerous!" Starfire declared, a small whoosh of air signaling her flight into the room. "Did you not see the way he looked at us?"

"Fear makes people do very dangerous things, Star," Cyborg said ominously.

"She has a point," Raven said slowly, and Trigger forced himself not to clench his hands into fists as she pulled off one of his gloves, her fingertips cold against the back of his hand. "Look at his knuckles," she said. "Look at these scars." She ran her fingertips along the bones. "He's been punching a lot of things with unprotected hands."

"So?" Cyborg asked. "Lots of teenage boys use punching bags."

"Punching bags aren't meant to leave marks like that, though," Robin observed.

"Life on the streets?" The green kid asked.

"Doesn't have the look," Cyborg said shortly. "Someone's been taking care of this kid."

Trigger couldn't hold his silence anymore and opened his eyes, making Starfire jump back in surprise. "Taking care of me?" He repeated with a high and mocking laugh, unlike any sound he had heard himself make before. "If only you knew that half of it, gearhead!"

"So enlighten us," Robin said, crossing his arms.

Trigger raised his eyebrows and smirked beneath the mask that they had thankfully left on. "I very much doubt that you're interested in tragic backstories," he said coldly.

"We can make yours less tragic," Robin offered.

Trigger gave another laugh, but this one was dead-sounding and mirthless and he struggled to keep his composure—frankly, just knowing that he was capable of making that kind of noise scared him enough to make his hair stand on end. "Do tell me how you plan to do that," he replied, "because really, I would love to hear it."

"Do you have any idea how dangerous Slade is?" Robin asked. Trigger noted that his tone was guarded and carefully polite.

"You think I don't?" Trigger countered, careful not to reveal anything that might give them the upper hand.

"We think you're..." Robin paused to find the right word and Trigger narrowed his eyes as he realized just how carefully diplomatic he was striving to be.

"Crazy," the green kid mumbled, and Raven jabbed him in the side with her elbow. "Ow!"

"Misled would be better," Robin said, frowning at his teammate.

"No, that's where you're wrong," Trigger said, wishing that he could square up to the spiky-haired punk and salvage at least some of his dignity instead of being forced to glare at him from the half-reclined metal table. "You seem to be suffering under the delusion that we'll have a nice talk, discuss this situation calmly, and I'll just turn my back on the man who saved my life and join your little tights-wearing band of teenagers with their heads stuck up their asses."

"The only reason Slade so much as looked at you is because he wants to use you," the green kid growled.

"Is that what happened to Terra?" Trigger arched his eyebrow coldly. If he pushed, really made them mad, they could become careless and reveal more than they meant to—or they could seriously hurt him. "He used her? Sounds to me like he offered her a pretty good deal. Taught her to control her powers, got her away from pricks like you..."

"Shut up!" The green kid lunged, his eyes blazing so ferociously that Trigger half expected him to transform and rip his head clean off his shoulders.

"Beast Boy!" Robin lunged and put himself between the shifter and the captive. "Do not touch him," he growled, his voice very low.

"How can you just stand there and let him say things like that about Terra?" Beast Boy demanded, his hands clenching into shaking fists at his sides. "Did you even care about her?"

 _Yes,_ Trigger thought, grateful that his mask hid his smile. _Yes, let them fight with each other like dogs over a bone...get them angry enough so they don't notice me getting out of these straps._ He began to tense and relax, tense and relax, trying to subtly loosen them without drawing attention to himself.

"Of _course_ I cared about Terra!" Robin was saying. "She was part of the team! She sacrificed herself to save us from Slade—do you think I don't remember that?"

"Then act like you do and protect her memory!" Beast Boy shot back.

"Fighting isn't going to solve the problem we have now," Raven cut in. "We need to figure out what we're going to do with him." She tilted her hooded head toward Trigger, who narrowed his eyes. He was trying his hardest to look intimidating, but the pain in his leg that had resulted from Cyborg wrenching it back so mercilessly was beginning to build into a more and more terrible climax; he felt like he was going to vomit.

"And we shouldn't discuss it in front of him," Beast Boy spat.

"I don't get to have a say in my own fate?" Trigger raised an eyebrow.

Cyborg turned to him, his single red eye glaring brightly. "No," he said coldly. "You don't." The Titans turned as one and stalked out the door, leaving Trigger alone with his pain and his ever-multiplying questions.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen: History**

"Slade," Trigger murmured once he was alone. "Slade?"

There was no answer, not even the almost insectoid buzzing of a silent but flowing connection. He couldn't hear anything in the way of his master and he shook his head, rubbing it against the top of his shoulder, and his heart plummeted when he realized that his earpiece was gone; it had been removed. He twisted his head, craning his neck and looking frantically around the room. Where was it? He _had_ to get into contact with Slade, had to tell him that the Titans were holding him hostage. He shuddered to imagine the fury Slade would no doubt fly into if he thought that his apprentice had betrayed him...

He kept tensing and relaxing his wrists and his left leg. His right thigh still blazed with pain and he could feel a fine sheen of sweat building on his face whenever he moved his leg. _I have to escape this place and get back to Slade with only one good leg. God dammit._ No matter which way he looked at it, the situation wasn't good. He couldn't run, and jumping off things was completely out of the question unless his unhurt leg became bionic in the seconds that spanned between liftoff, free-fall, and landing. All he could do for now was tense, release, and think.

He had to be in the Titans' Tower—nowhere else would they be so relaxed as home, and their home was shaped like a gigantic letter. Not exactly inconspicuous. That added a bay that he had to most likely swim across before he could get back to Slade. He was a fair swimmer; not terribly fast, but he had stamina, and that was what he needed more than speed.

"I have to get out of here, before they can figure out what they want to do to me," Trigger whispered, craning his neck to look around again, turquoise eyes staring around for anything sharp that he could use to cut through the straps or somehow undo the buckles. Of course, the problem with buckles was that they needed to get tighter before they could be undone...

Hours of futile wriggling later, Trigger's temper was frayed almost to breaking point. His leg throbbed and he felt like he was going to throw up from the pain. _Shit...I'll need a miracle to get out of here!_

Perhaps Lady Luck heard him, for in that moment, the heavy door slid open with a soft whoosh and Robin entered—alone.

"What do you want now?" Trigger asked wearily.

"To talk to you," Robin answered simply. He looked like he was about to cross his arms, but dropped them halfway and stood still. "You don't know how dangerous Slade is," he said after an uncomfortable silence had passed.

"This again?" Trigger groaned, softly thunking his head against the metal table. "We've been over this, Spiky."

"Let me tell you a story," Robin said. He leaned against the wall and looked at the floor. Trigger watched him closely.

"Does it start with 'once upon a time' and feature a princess who sings to animals?"

"No," Robin said through clenched teeth, clearly struggling to remain calm. "It's my story."

"Like I said," Trigger smirked.

Robin's hands clenched, his shoulders tightening and his eyes narrowing in anger before he took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. "I was Slade's apprentice once," he confessed.

 _Found the connection,_ Trigger thought, startled. "You?" He asked, all sharp-witted sass gone from his tone. "You were _Slade's apprentice._ Why? Don't you have your happy band of friends?"

Robin pulled up a chair and sank down into it, resting his elbows on his knees. "It's a long story," he said quietly. "Better get comfortable."

"Yes, there's nowhere I'd rather relax than strapped to a metal table."

Robin ignored the remark. "There was a ruse," he said slowly. "Do you know what a cronoton detonator is?"

Trigger nodded.

"He called us at five in the morning one time, saying that he had one."

"Whenever you were Slade's apprentice, did you ever see him sleep? He must be the world's biggest insomniac."

The corner of Robin's mouth twitched. 'That's what Beast Boy said when he called...'what are you, an insomniac? Who calls at five in the morning?'"

Trigger didn't respond, just watched the team's leader.

Robin cleared his throat and shifted in his chair. "Well...we got separated when we were hunting him."

"How?"

"We were running toward one of his henchmen and then Cinderblock ambushed us. I started fighting him and the rest of the team went on ahead."

"Some loyalty," Trigger muttered.

Robin's masked eyes narrowed. "I told them to go. When I took Cinderblock down—do you know Cinderblock?"

"Gigantic concrete behemoth with a brain the size of a pea."

"That's about right," Robin conceded. "Anyway, when I took him down, I found that he had a tracking device on him. It led me to Slade."

"Obviously a trick," Trigger said. "Cinderblock is purely a henchman, and there is no way that Slade would be stupid enough to give him a two-way tracker unless he wanted you to find it and come to him."

"You're too smart for your own good—or at least you know Slade's book of tricks better than I ever did."

"I'm sure of it."

"The other four—"

"What about Terra?" Trigger interrupted.

"We didn't know her then," Robin said stiffly.

"Oh."

"The other four," Robin continued, "chased down the boat that the detonator was in. They handled the robot that was driving it and Cyborg tried to deactivate the detonator before Slade could set it off, but the detonator broke."

"Well, that was unexpected."

Robin nodded. "A ray gun came up from beneath the deck of the boat and fired four shots. Knocked them into the water. They thought that the gun didn't work—none of them were hurt."

"Another trick."

"Perceptive," Robin murmured. "I confronted Slade alone. We fought for the detonator's controller. I didn't know what had happened on the boat, but when I finally got the device, it broke apart in my hands. It was another fake. Slade had me right where he wanted me. He told me that he had been looking for an apprentice...and he wanted me."

"Asking the wannabe superhero to join forces with a villain doesn't seem like the smartest of moves," Trigger noted. "Why did you say yes?"

"I had no other choice," Robin said, dropping his head into his hands. Trigger felt a sudden and surprisingly sharp pang at the gesture—for all his tough mannerisms, it was obvious that he was haunted by the past, the ghosts of days gone by dogging his every waking moment. "The ray my friends were shot with wasn't designed to hurt them on the outside. Instead, it infected their blood with nanobots that Slade could control with the push of a button. If I didn't do whatever he wanted, he was going to kill the people I love, and he was going to make me watch."

Trigger was silent.

"You don't know what that sort of decision is like," Robin whispered, running his fingers slowly through his hair and looking up again. "To know that your friends are alive but filled with unimaginable pain because they think that you betrayed them, or to still have their love but be forced to watch them die..."

"You're right, I don't know what that's like," Trigger said softly. "Before Slade, I...I'd never had any friends."

"Slade isn't your friend," Robin answered, his voice quiet but forceful. "Didn't you learn anything from what I told you? He will do anything to get what he wants. He won't hesitate to murder."

"He wouldn't hurt me," Trigger retorted, but his voice was rapidly losing conviction.

"Why do you think that?" Robin pressed.

"You and your Titans dedicate yourselves to being the city's heroes. You stand for peace, for good." He gave a brittle-sounding laugh. "I don't. You have no idea what I've done."

"You're right," Robin replied quietly, "I don't. How did you meet Slade?"

"He saved my life," Trigger answered truthfully.

"He saved mine once too," Robin said. "I went over the edge of a roof, and he caught me. Pulled me to safety."

"Why?"

"He said he wasn't done with me."

Trigger was quiet for a long while before he looked at Robin, his wide turquoise eyes full of sincerity. "I don't know what to do," he whispered. "I don't have any family or any friends to go to. Slade's all I have. If I leave him, I don't know what I'll do..."

"There's halfway houses all over the city," Robin reassured him. "We can get you to one of those if you want."

Trigger looked away for a long while before shifting in the restraints. "Can you get the mask off?" He asked softly. "I...I don't want to wear it anymore."

"Of course." Robin stood up and walked to him and Trigger braced himself as he felt the youth's fingertips lightly touch his face as the hard black mask was removed. "What's your name, anyway?"

"He called me Trigger," Trigger confessed. "Can I ask you something, Robin?"

Robin's features softened. "What is it?"

"What did Cyborg do to my leg?" Trigger asked. "It hurts really, really bad." He widened his eyes innocently.

"The muscle was torn, and pretty badly at that," Robin answered. "He...wanted to immobilize you."

"Well, it worked," Trigger said with a humorless, rueful grin. "Do you have to keep me tied down, though? I feel like any minute one of your team is going to turn me into sushi. Beast Boy, maybe."

"Not likely," Robin answered with a half grin. "He's a vegetarian."

"Do you have any morphine?"

"Nope."

"Time to suffer," Trigger groaned, letting his head fall back against the table.

"Not for much longer," Robin promised. "We'll find you a halfway house and then you'll be free."

Trigger turned his head away so Robin wouldn't see the smile creeping across his face. _Oh Robin. Y_ _ou have no idea._


	16. Chapter 16

_Terribly sorry I haven't uploaded a chapter in a couple days, but I've been really sick. Thank you all for your patience, my lovely readers. ~Undiscovered_

 **Chapter Sixteen: A (Partially Successful) Plan**

Trigger sat up, rolling his shoulders back and trying to release some of the soreness from his muscles, stiff from inactivity. He had managed to loosen the straps just enough to painfully slide one wrist free—it was helpful to have skinny wrists, and he had Raven to thank for removing his glove. The tiny amount of overlap between the edge of his sleeve and the bottom of his glove were just enough to get free. The Titans were gone; a blaring alarm had shrilled through the tower and a blood-red light began to flash on and off. He had heard Robin's yell of "Trouble! Let's go!" and shortly afterward, blissful silence had stolen through the room.

Wrist and hand burning from where he had wrenched it free, he stretched his arm across his body and began fumbling with the other buckles. He slid slowly off the metal table and, gritting his teeth, took a step. He hit the ground almost immediately as a spasm of agony went screaming from the torn muscle to his brain and he choked back a cry of his own. "Damn...god dammit...how am I supposed to get back to Slade when I can't walk?" Using the edge of the table, he pulled himself back up and leaned on his good leg, drawing and releasing a shaky breath. He took another step, hopping quickly from his right leg to his left and groaning through clenched teeth, his fingernails digging into his palms as he limped over to a nearby table and picked up his glove and his mask. He felt better with the hard black material shielding his nose and mouth, like it was some sort of barrier between him and the pain.

"Where did those fancy bastards put my weapons?" He put a hand on the wall and hobbled over to the door, punching his fist against the rectangular green button that made the thick slab of metal slide open. There was a long hallway beyond it and Trigger swore horribly; how far was he going to have to walk? "Don't suppose there's a directory around here..."

How much time did he have? How efficient were they in dealing with whatever threat had come up? What would they do if they came back and found him wandering the halls? Would Cyborg break his leg this time instead of just tear the muscle? Robin seemed hell-bent _against_ killing him, but, Trigger thought ominously, death was far from the worst fate he could come to.

He limped past a door, then stopped and turned back slowly. The door was left open just a crack, as though someone had tried to close it and been in too big a hurry to do it properly. Inside, he could just see half of Slade's mask staring back at him.

"Slade!" Trigger forced the door open before stopping dead in confusion. Slade's mask was hanging on the wall like some sort of grim trophy. The single empty eye stared blankly back at him and a feeling of terrible discomfort shuddered through Trigger like a winter wind through leafless branches. There was just something so inexplicably _wrong_ about the mask without the person...

Trigger hobbled into the room, his right leg throbbing so dreadfully that he felt like his flesh was eating away at itself. Newspaper clippings were plastered to the walls, along with rather vague silhouettes of villains that presumably the Titans had taken down. What really caught his eye, though, was the large board nailed on the wall directly across the rather featureless bed. Articles and pictures and random scribbled notes were joined together by thumbtacks and spiderwebs of string, all connecting to the very familiar S-shaped insignia that Trigger himself wore on the leather bands across his chest. Trigger glanced at the empty mask again and whistled softly. "Robin, my friend, you have a serious problem. Might I suggest rehab, followed by a halfway house?" He gave a high-pitched giggle, almost delirious from panic and pain.

He was about to leave the room and continue to stagger onward when something caught his eye as he raked his sweat-ruffled hair back out of his pale face. The shining blade of his sword gleamed softly back at him like the smile of an old friend and he snatched it up off the desk, cursing Robin for laying his stupid green-gloved hands all over it. Trigger felt much better with his weapon back in his hand—it helped him fool himself into thinking that he would stand a chance in case the Titans came back.

"What else are you hiding in here, Prince Paranoid?" Trigger muttered, sliding the sword into the sheath on his back. He looked at the desk, just as littered with paper clippings as the walls. Small weaponry cluttered one corner—shurikens, a small red ball that looked like it would explode if thrown hard enough, and a butterfly knife. Trigger put the shurikens into the pouch on his waist and tucked the butterfly knife into a sheath on his leg, deliberating for a long moment before gingerly picking up the little orb. Messing with probable explosives of unknown magnitude was a very silly idea, he thought to himself as he used the wall to help himself limp back out the door, but it could come in handy in case the Titans came back too soon. Surely even Robin wouldn't be stupid enough to keep a _really_ powerful bomb just sitting on his desk...

Trigger forced himself to continue hopping/hobbling toward the door at the end of the hall, leaning heavily against the wall to take as much weight off his injured leg as possible. He slammed a shaking fist against another green button and found himself in the Titans' living room, a magnificent glass window overlooking the crystalline bay and the rest of Jump City. "What a view," Trigger mumbled, pausing to stare and managing to feel astonishment despite his pain. "I wonder how far it is to the ground..."

Too far to survive a fall, was the answer. He leaned his forehead against the glass in dismay and felt hot tears prickle annoyingly at the backs of his turquoise eyes, rubbing them angrily away with his knuckles. He hadn't cried in years and he would be dragged facedown through hell and back before he would let that streak end. If only he could make a parachute or something...but then again, he would have to break the window and make it to the bay alive, not to mention untangling himself from the parachute strings before the drenched fabric dragged him to the depths.

"HEY!"

He whipped around to see the Titans standing ever-dramatically in the doorway. There was a split second of silence before they rushed at him, Beast Boy morphing into an eagle with wicked talons outstretched—and Trigger got an idea.

He whipped his arm around and threw the little orb as hard as he could, lobbing it past the shapeshifter, and Robin recognized it first. He yelled "HIT THE DIRT!" and he, Raven, Cyborg, and Starfire scattered like bowling pins. Trigger grabbed Beast Boy by the legs and locked an arm around his throat, squeezing and turning his head to avoid the flailing wings and flashing claws. The orb bounced off the wall and hit the ground with an incredibly anticlimactic bounce, and just as the other four Titans emerged from wherever they had taken cover, a tremendous explosion seemed to rock the very air around them. A chunk of debris hurtled past Trigger's head, missing his ear by no more than an inch and smashing through the window. Shards of glass did not have so calculated an aim, however; red-hot pain seared across Trigger's cheek and the back of his neck as they sliced through his skin. He winced, but didn't let go of Beast Boy even as the little green weirdo morphed fluidly from a bird to a bull to a gorilla as he desperately tried to dislodge Trigger's arm from around his neck, inadvertently staggering backward toward the gaping hole in the side of the tower.

The Titans were silhouetted against the billowing clouds of smoke and lashing tongues of flame that climbed hungrily up the walls and licking at the ceiling. Trigger managed to yank the butterfly knife from the sheath on his leg and gripped the handles tightly. As soon as Beast Boy morphed from a gorilla back to his normal-ish form, Trigger stabbed the blade directly into his back.

Beast Boy gave a nightmarish scream, too animalistic to be human but too human to belong to a beast. Using the shapeshifter as a shield, Trigger dragged him backward, dodging the bursts of green light that Starfire flung at him and ducking around Raven's daggers of black magic. Blood was beginning to pool around his feet and he almost slipped in it, Beast Boy's legs kicking out uselessly as he clawed at Trigger's arm.

Trigger dragged him a few more feet before turning and flinging himself out the window, taking Beast Boy with him. They plummeted toward the ground and the wind whipped Trigger's face so harshly that he could feel his eyes tearing up. "You'll fly us both over the water if you know what's good for you!" Trigger yelled, hoping to heaven that Beast Boy heard him over the rush of air and his own screams of pain.

Just when Trigger thought they were both going to be smashed into pieces against the rocky island surrounding the base of the tower, two bloody-feathered wings shot out and began to frantically beat the air and despite his terror, Trigger felt a twinge of grudging admiration for Beast Boy, managing to slow their fall even with a literal knife in his back. They angled toward the water and Trigger couldn't help it; he closed his eyes. He didn't want to see his own death.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen: The Long Journey**

Trigger never thought that the sensation of crashing headlong into seawater at roughly fifty miles an hour would be a pleasant one, but now it felt angelic, divine even. With an almighty splash, Trigger was thrown free from Beast Boy and began to swim away as quickly as he could with an injured leg, certain that the Titans were going to come down on him like vengeful gods any second now. He wasn't entirely wrong, either; he felt the water around him shift and opened his eyes, twisting around to see a solid black bubble appear just short of snagging around his leg. He watched, holding his breath, as Raven lifted the water out of the bay, pulling Beast Boy back up to the Tower. Trigger swam down, kicking with his one good leg as he made his desperate bid for freedom.

He didn't come up for air until his lungs felt like they were about to burst, his head breaking through the surface of the water as he gulped at the air, coughing and gasping as the iron grip of suffocation began to loosen. Shaking his sopping hair out of his eyes, he looked back up at the smoking Tower and saw four figures huddled around Beast Boy's prone figure and he was seized by a panicked flash of guilt—had he _killed_ him? The barbaric guard at the T.O.I., well, that was one thing, but this...this was completely undeserved.

 _I was just trying to save my own skin,_ Trigger argued with himself, ducking back under the water before they could see him and continuing to swim. _Who knows what they would have done to you if you had stayed?_

 _They wouldn't have hurt you,_ insisted a little voice in the back of his mind. _Did you not see how staunchly Robin defended you from his own friends? What about all those things he told you about Slade?_

 _Slade's my master, and my friend,_ Trigger thought angrily, kicking doggedly on with his hurt leg trailing uselessly along behind him. _He wouldn't hurt me._

 _Where's your proof?_

 _Shut the hell up!_ Trigger banished the pessimistic voice from his mind and focused on swimming for the shore, looking at the blocky skyscrapers of Jump City poking at the sky whenever he came up for air. Idly he wondered if Slade had designed the suit with swimming in mind; it didn't retain water like he was afraid it would. He looked back toward the Tower again, the smoke rising into the sky like a grim, billowing banner, wordlessly declaring to the world what Trigger had done.

It took him at least another hour before he was able to drag himself to the shore and he lay with his legs still in the water, gasping and coughing. He had never felt anything as wonderful as the cool and gritty touch of sand against his cheek. His soaked hair was plastered to his forehead, sending rivulets of salt water trickling diagonally across his skin like the soft brush of fairy feet. _Fairy feet,_ Trigger thought with a weak laugh that was more coughing than anything else. _God. I'm going crazy. Fairies aren't real._ He closed his eyes, water dripping from his lashes, breathing heavily. He wanted to go to sleep right here, lying half in and half out of the lapping waves like a carelessly dropped doll, limbs splayed and broken. His leg throbbed so badly that he felt like he was going to vomit, but at the moment he didn't know if he had strength enough to even lift his head. The only thing that made him push himself to his trembling hands and knees was the thought of the wrathful Titans coming after him.

Hair hanging limply into his face, Trigger crawled a few paces until he reached a boulder looming up out of the sandy shore like a single tooth jutting up from a lumpy gray gum and wrapped his exhausted arms around it in the feeble embrace of a dying man. He staggered to his feet and took a single step, balancing precariously on one leg, before he bent over and retched. Nothing came out—he hadn't eaten in days.

Trigger stumbled on, heading slowly toward the city. _Gotta get to Slade...gotta get back. I need to get back to him..._ he repeated this like a mantra as he staggered onward, his exhausted hobble making his trail weave like that of a drunkard. He limped through the eerily quiet streets, looking around and wondering without really thinking. _Shouldn't there be more people out and about? Why are the roads so empty?_

He was too tired and in pain to truly care, though, and he lost track of time before he had gone two blocks. How long was he walking? It could have been minutes, hours, days...

Trigger stared unseeingly at the sidewalk as he limped onward, reaching out with one hand to steady himself against the wall of shops and buildings as he staggered onward. _Gotta get back to Slade. Gotta get back...gotta...get...back..._ And with that, his legs buckled beneath him and he crashed to the ground, cracking his head painfully against the brick-red veneer of a coffee shop. Pain exploded through his skull and he whimpered a swear. "I'll...I'll be damned if I'm going to be knocked down by a building..." Trigger dug his fingertips into the grooved designs by the door, water oozing from his still-wet gloves, and hauled himself to his feet. "I'm stronger than you, you shit landmark," he groaned, glaring at the building. "You probably use the tears of children to make your lattes...warms your cold dead heart."

"What the hell?" A familiar voice sounded from behind him and Trigger turned sharply, hand jerking to the hilt of his sword, but he relaxed when he saw Leng.

"L-Leng..."

"Trigger! What in the name of everything holy happened to you?" Leng threw the door to the sleek black car open and ran to him, gripping him by the shoulders to steady him as he swayed on his feet.

"I need to get back to Slade," Trigger gasped urgently, clutching at Leng's arms. "I have to get back..."

"Easy, easy!" Leng said, his eyes flashing in panic behind his glasses. "It's just around the corner—what happened to your leg?"

"I need to get back to Slade," Trigger repeated uncomprehendingly. _What will he do to me if he thinks I ran off?_

"It's right around the corner," Leng assured him. "Here, come on." He led Trigger into the car and put it in gear more roughly than was necessary, stomping on the gas and sending them lurching through a turn. Trigger let his head rest against the window, acutely aware that the seawater still clinging to his suit was soaking into the seat of Leng's car and embarrassed because of it. He felt like a child, like a helpless little kid who was forced to rely on other people for everything, and he hated it.

"What happened to you?" Leng asked again, looking at him.

"The...Titans," Trigger stammered, coughing. "It's a long story, but I...I need to talk to Slade."

"Okay," Leng promised gently. "It's okay, Trigger—I'll take you to him, okay? Just trust me."

"I trust you, Leng," Trigger mumbled, his voice barely audible. A dim corner in his mind registered that this was the first time he had ever said those words to anyone. It seemed like only a heartbeat later that the car purred to a stop and he fumbled with the door handle, half climbing and half falling out of the seat, clutching at the side of the door to steady himself on his one good leg. A door hidden in the wall of an alley opened and a familiar masked figure stood immobile in the shadows, a single storm-gray eye looking at him impassively.

"S-Slade," Trigger gasped, taking a stumbling step toward him.

Slade walked slowly closer, his eye narrowing. "Trigger. It's been two days. Where have you been?"

"The Titans, they—they kidnapped me, kept me prisoner, but I—I got away," Trigger stammered out, pain making him lightheaded.

"You came back?" Slade repeated, and Trigger imagined him raising an eyebrow.

Trigger nodded, wobbling on his one good leg.

Suddenly, Slade was at his side and had pulled his arm across his shoulder, wrapping a strong arm around his waist to hold him upright. "Come with me," he said emotionlessly, and Trigger was powerless to resist even if he had wanted to. He allowed himself to be half-led, half carried into the safety of his master's lair, and he could feel Slade watching him. "Tell me what happened."

"I was fighting them," Trigger mumbled, his head pounding as he tried to remember through the heavy fog of fatigue that weighed his mind down like a weighted net. "The robot—Cyborg—he grabbed my leg and did something to it..." What was it that Robin had said he did? "He ripped my leg in half."

"Clearly," Slade replied coldly.

"Sir?" Leng's timid voice came from behind him. "Sir, please—can't the questions wait until I've had a chance to take a look at him? He's delirious—likely dehydrated, not to mention whatever happened to his leg—please, let him rest for a few hours and then you can question him."

Slade rounded on him so suddenly that Trigger slipped out of his grip and fell to the ground. "Did I imagine things, or did you just try to give me an order?"

"N-no sir!" Leng stammered, taking a step back. "From the point of view of a doctor—it was just a suggestion—!"

"Hm. Very well." Slade turned back to Trigger and, before he could protest or even open his mouth to speak, scooped him up like a child.

"I—I can walk!" Trigger exclaimed, his surprise managing to lift his exhaustion for a brief moment as his cheeks reddened in embarrassment.

"Of course you can," Slade replied, his voice colder than ever. "What with your leg ripped in half." He stalked through a doorway and set Trigger down on a frigid metal examination table before turning on his heel and disappearing into the shadows of another room.

"What—what just happened?" Trigger asked, turning confused eyes to Leng, who looked rather pale.

Leng shrugged, not meeting his bewildered stare.

"Wait—you told me once that you were a lawyer," Trigger remembered out of nowhere. "How are you a doctor _and_ a lawyer?"

"That wasn't the whole truth," Leng replied tersely. "I dropped out of law school after my first year. Lay down, please."

Trigger would have passed over two million dollars for the chance to sleep, and he obeyed without complaint. He was so tired that the cold metal table beneath him felt as soft as a cloud and he closed his eyes, letting his mind drift blissfully away into unconsciousness.

He woke to a bright light shining directly into his eyes. "Tell the firefly to piss off," he mumbled.

Someone laughed nearby and he blinked, squinting as the brilliant lances of white light sent stabbing pain through his head. Leng's form swam blurrily into view, his gloved hands holding a rather large syringe.

"I'm not gonna let you practice surgery on me," Trigger informed him, pushing himself up onto his elbows and trying to scoot away. "You may be a doctor but I'm not a testing doll!"

Leng reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "Do you want your leg to get better?"

Trigger frowned before remembering his harrowing escape from the Tower. "You can fix it, just like that?"

Leng nodded.

"How?"

"Slade manufactured nanobots," Leng started, but Trigger cut him off.

"There's no way in hell that you're injecting me with those!" He exclaimed, trying to scramble away, only for a flash of pain to shoot through him from ankle to hip as he realized his leg was strapped into place.

"And why is that, Trigger?" Slade's calm voice sent a thrill of fear down his spine. "What reason do you have to be afraid of nanobots?"

Trigger twisted to see the man in the mask approaching him with very slow, measured steps. "I..."

Slade's eye narrowed. "Answer me."

"Robin—he told me that he had been your apprentice once. Is it true?"

"I don't see the connection that—"

Trigger cut him off, staring wide-eyed up into his master's face. "Is it true, Slade?"

Slade nodded.

"He said that you coerced him into it by threatening the other Titans," Trigger confessed, choosing his words carefully. "He told me that you threatened them by infecting the other four with nanobots that attacked them from the inside, and he said that you would kill them if he didn't do what you wanted."

Slade's eye narrowed even further. "And you believed him. You believed someone who kidnapped you, hurt you, someone who is your known enemy? I expected better of you."

"No, I didn't mean it like that—" Trigger scrambled for words.

"Then what _did_ you mean?" Slade leaned closer.

Trigger shrank back. "I...I don't know."

"No, _enlighten me._ " Slade's voice was low and deadly.

"Paranoia," Trigger stammered. "Old habits die hard—questioning things is the only reason I've survived this long, after the orphanage you saved me from..."

Slade seemed satisfied, for he turned to Leng and motioned for him to proceed. Trigger met Leng's eyes, the dark irises filled with apologetic pain as he positioned the needle over Trigger's leg. "They'll just knit the muscle back together," Leng murmured. "It'll create a sealant on the edges of the tear until it can heal. I promise."

Trigger said nothing, merely clenched his jaw as a spasm of pain shuddered through the muscle, unable to look away as Leng pushed the plunger down. Whatever chemical was in that barrel passed into Trigger's bloodstream and he nervously rubbed his palms with his thumbs, wondering if now, like Robin said, Slade would be able to kill him with the push of a button.


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's Note: I'm very sorry that I haven't updated the story in a while; in addition to writer's block, I've been fighting a depressive episode and so I apologize if this chapter is shorter than usual and isn't up to scratch. I will do my utmost to get the story back on track, though. Thank you all for your patience. Love, Undiscovered**

 **Chapter Eighteen**

"How's your leg feeling?" Leng asked, poking his head through the doorway. His usually neat hair was mussed, like he had forgotten to defeat it with comb and gel before leaving his apartment.

"You should invest in a toupee," Trigger told him matter-of-factly, shifting on the table where he had been sitting for several hours now.

Leng grinned at him. "Alas, I have too much invested in the shampoo industry to shave my head."

"You could always wash your wig," Trigger pointed out, a smile of his own lifting the corners of his mouth. He loved this good-natured verbal sparring that passed so easily between the two of them.

"You win this round," Leng groaned, throwing up his hands in mock despair. "How's your leg doing? Are the nanobots doing their job?"

"That's difficult to tell, because you yourself told me that I shouldn't move from here, and, ever the dutiful patient, I haven't."

" _You're_ about as _dutiful_ as a shovel is able to count," Leng snorted, reaching out to teasingly tug the blue streak in Trigger's hair.

"You know nothing of the secret lives of shovels," Trigger retorted, lightly smacking his hand away. "Maybe there's a shovel out there that's working on solving the algorithms in the universe."

Leng rolled his eyes. "Sure there is, kiddo." He reached out and undid the straps that he had fixed around Trigger's ankle and just above his knee—just an extra measure, he had said, that would keep Trigger from accidentally moving his leg and tearing the seal that the nanobots were supposed to be making. The corners of his mouth were twitching with the effort of holding back a laugh.

"What's so funny?"

"When Slade tried to put these on you," Leng chuckled, sliding the buckles free. "I don't think _anyone_ has ever had the guts to suggest that he's not getting enough air through that mask of his."

"To be completely fair, those slits are pretty small," Trigger said. "But yeah...I don't like being tied."

"Or blindfolded, as I recall," Leng added slyly. "Try bending your leg," he instructed.

Slowly, Trigger complied, squeezing the edge of the table with his fingers and preparing for the nigh unbearable spasm of pain that he was sure was going to come. To his shock, it did not.

"How do you feel?" Leng asked, studying his face carefully.

"Surprised, in a word," Trigger said hesitantly. "Other than feeling the nerves in my leg have been replaced with cotton fibers, it feels almost normal. Ish."

"Cotton fibers?" Leng raised a thin eyebrow.

"Frail and flimsy," Trigger explained. "Not particularly receptive."

"Interesting analogy," Leng commented. "You should be a poet."

Trigger snorted. "Me? No, I find I can get my point across better with a good solid kick." He ran his fingers through his hair, bracing himself, and took an uncertain step. His leg trembled, but not from pain. "Wow, those...whatever they were really did their job!"

Leng smiled, his dark brown eyes sparkling behind his rectangular glasses. "Does it hurt?"

Trigger shook his head, worry clouding his face.

"What's the matter?" Leng's face likewise creased in concern.

Trigger looked around, making sure that his mysterious masked master was nowhere in sight before nervously meeting Leng's eyes and murmuring, "Will Slade be able to control me now—destroy me from the inside like he was able to with the Titans?"

"Do you believe that story Robin told you?" Leng asked, sitting on the edge of the metal table and patting the space beside him, motioning for Trigger to perch next to him.

"I don't know," Trigger said slowly, biting the inside of his cheek and looking at the ground.

"Well, what do you think?" Leng encouraged gently. "You can hardly be your own person if you don't know how to think for yourself."

"I know how to think," Trigger snapped, more harshly than he intended. He was quiet for a moment before glancing anxiously around again and speaking softly. "Attacking Slade in such a way would be a very clever idea; it would plant seeds of doubt and fear in me, or at least that's what I would think if the positions were changed and I was trying to get someone on my side."

"But?" Leng raised his eyebrows slightly.

"But why would Slade _need_ that kind of leverage?" Trigger went on, his voice almost a whisper as he rested his elbows on his knees. "It would be necessary to coerce Robin, if what he told me is true. But Terra...I don't know what happened with her."

A momentary look of confusion flickered across Leng's face, but he didn't say anything.

"Robin could be lying, but his voice...he sounded so pained, haunted almost...it would take a _hell_ of an actor to play it that convincingly." Trigger looked up at the kind doctor, his turquoise eyes widening. "Leng, I don't think that he was lying to me."

Leng put a hand on Trigger's shoulder and squeezed it gently. "I'll tell you a little secret," he whispered. "Those nanobots are designed to dissolve after they knit your muscle back together."

"How do you know they won't attack me from the inside?" Trigger asked, his voice betraying his fear.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to program a nanobot to do _anything_?" Leng asked. "They're so tiny! You might as well be trying to knit sweaters for ants."

" _You_ should be the poet," Trigger said.

Leng laughed and lightly cuffed the back of his head. "Keep your sass to yourself, kid."

Trigger smiled, feeling a little glow of warmth deep within his heart—he finally understood (at least in part) the joyful glow that had surrounded the laughing people in the hair salon that day so long ago, when he stole the cobalt blue dye. After a moment, his smile faded slightly as an unbidden question swam to the front of his mind, disturbing the water of his thoughts like the thrashings of an injured fish: was this happiness what Robin and the other Titans felt, every day of their lives?


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter Nineteen: Factory on Fire**

It was another two weeks before Slade sent him out on another serious mission—Trigger didn't know if it was because his master wanted to give his leg a chance to adapt to the nanobots' seal or simply because he might have wanted to keep an eye on him for a little while, after the whole escapade with the Titans.

Trigger got his next assignment while Slade was trying to hit him in the face with a metal bar. He threw himself into a back handspring—which he had very recently learned how to do—and flipped away from the steel pole as it whipped through the air where his head had been only moments before. He let Slade get closer to him before using his smaller stature to dodge around his master and leap onto his back, wrapping an arm around Slade's throat and squeezing as hard as he could, driving his knee into the small of Slade's back. Slade reeled backward and slammed Trigger into the wall so hard that he saw stars, and his grip loosened slightly.

That was all Slade needed. Reaching around, he grabbed Trigger by the neck and wrenched him off as easily as jerking a cord from a socket, tossing him away like a cigarette butt. Trigger crashed to the ground, landing hard on his side and sliding a few feet, the metal on his suit scraping gratingly across the concrete beneath him. Before he could get up, the end of the metal bar was pressing lightly against his throat—all Slade would need to do would be to stab it down hard enough and that would be the end of him.

Trigger lay on his back, looking up into his master's single visible eye.

Slade gazed impassively down at him for a moment longer before removing the pressure on his windpipe and allowing him to sit up. "You're improving even faster than I had hoped," he commented in that smooth, eternally-calm voice of his. "I can see that you've been practicing: well done."

Trigger felt his face light up as he smiled, getting to his feet. "Thank you, sir."

Slade raised his chin in what might have been acknowledgment of his apprentice's gratitude, but if it was, he didn't give words to match the gesture. "I have an assignment for you."

"Anything," Trigger said eagerly, not realizing just how much he had missed the action until now.

Collapsing the pole he had been fighting with and stowing the now-tiny device back in its place on his belt, Slade took a moment before replying. "There's a factory on the edge of the city that's been abandoned for some time now."

"What do you want with an abandoned factory?" Trigger asked incredulously.

Slade's eye narrowed into a dangerous slit. "Shut up," he said softly, and Trigger lowered his eyes in a silent apology. "There is a machine that I want you to retrieve for me, or more specifically, a data chip inside the main generator. I'll give you more instructions once you get there."

* * *

"This is the ideal place for a haunted house," Trigger murmured to himself, his steel-toed boots making tracks in the carpet of dust that coated the floor. "If the Mistress was a robot—a not implausible concept—this is where she would live." He looked around, frowning beneath his mask but glad for the filtering technology inside it; the dust didn't get to him. "Slade was right about one thing; this place hasn't been used since the Middle Ages at the very latest!" Glancing at a smaller generator to his right, he smirked. "Wonder if King Arthur ever brought his knights to this power plant? Must have been a _shocking_ experience!"

 _"You're going to wish you hadn't said that,"_ Slade groaned through the earpiece.

"Even a fun-sucker like you has to appreciate a good pun every now and again," Trigger replied. "That one was _electrifying._ "

" _The Titans may have torn your muscle but I am going to break your jaw,"_ Slade said, and Trigger grinned as he imaged the masked man thunking his head on the wall in exasperation.

"Punnery is an art, Slade," Trigger told him.

"I agree with you," rang out a horribly familiar voice, and Trigger whipped around to see the Titans standing in the doorway, dramatic as ever. "But the only place you'll be making puns from is a jail cell!" Robin narrowed his eyes, showing none of the agonized vulnerability that he had displayed when telling Trigger about how Slade had threatened his friends.

"Do you know why they call me the Nucleus?" Trigger asked, cocking his head.

"Because you're dense?" Raven suggested as dryly as ever.

Trigger ignored the jab. "I'm always escaping through the cell walls."

There was a snort of laughter and Trigger's heart lurched as he saw Beast Boy staring at him. "Normally I'd be mad at you for stabbing me and throwing me out the window, but that one _was_ good."

"You're not mad?" Trigger asked in confusion.

Beast Boy's eyes narrowed and his smile dropped off his face. "Oh no. I'm still mad." With that, he transformed into a jaguar and rushed Trigger, enormous green paws nearly soundless on the floor. Trigger's sword sang free from the sheath across his back and he slashed, making the shifter leap to the side to avoid the flashing blade. The other four Titans were hot on his heels, and they were showing no mercy; Trigger threw himself behind a behemoth of a machine to shield himself from Starfire's bolts and Cyborg's cannon-arm, eyes widening as he saw smoke billowing from where the beams of energy had destroyed the machine's parts.

Weirdly enough, Slade had gone dead quiet. The earpiece still buzzed softly, a sure sign that it was still on, but his master didn't speak a single word. Trigger yanked the whip from his belt and gripped the sword in his left hand, lashing out with both. The cracking of the leather snake and the way the tongue whipped so dangerously through the air was enough to keep at least Robin and Beast Boy away. The whip curled around Cyborg's arm at one point, but of course his metal limb didn't register the pain that surely would have made a normal human yelp like a dog. Cyborg grabbed the whip and jerked it, and his massively greater strength made the whip's handle fly from Trigger's hand.

Cyborg now turned the whip on Trigger, but fortunately he hadn't as much practice and so couldn't aim for shit, Trigger thought as adrenaline spiked through his veins. He leaped out of the way as Beast Boy, in gorilla form, made a grab for him, but his wild jump sent him directly into Robin. Trigger crashed into him and tried to use the human-shield strategy again, but Robin twisted deftly away and nailed him with a kick to the ribs so hard that all the air was forced from Trigger's lungs.

Unable to breathe, Trigger reeled away, gasping. Raven's black magic covered him from chest to knee and lifted him effortlessly off the ground before slamming him back down so hard that the concrete floor cracked beneath him. _Thank god for the suit,_ Trigger thought numbly, shock ricocheting through his body like a racquetball off court walls. The suit, somehow, absorbed most of the pain but Trigger knew that he would have a hell of a bruise collection once the fight was over. He rolled onto his stomach and scrambled away, fingers scraping at the shards of cement.

Starfire shot two massive bolts of green light at him and again Trigger dodged. But this time, something new happened. The bolts, not meeting their targets, crashed into a massive metal cylinder. It exploded with a tremendous _BHA-BOOOOM_ and the ensuing shock wave sent Starfire and Raven tumbling backward through the air. It was like a magnificent and terrifying chain reaction and in the next moment fire was arching up the walls and thick black smoke billowed into the air like an out-of-control fog machine.

 _How the hell is an abandoned factory burning like this one?_ Trigger had time to wonder before another explosion sent debris crashing down like meteors. Dimly, he heard Cyborg's booming voice order his friends to get out of there, never mind Slade's little rat! Just get out!

Eyes burning from the smoke, Trigger saw his hulking form smash easily through the door and run to safety, followed by Raven and Starfire.

 _Wait...where are Robin and the green kid?_ Trigger's stomach sank to his boots as his head snapped around, watering eyes squinted against the smoke and fire. _Does he know that they're not with him?_ He realized with horror that Robin was stuck—he heard him coughing from off to the left. Sheathing his sword, Trigger raced through the burning factory to see Robin straining to heave a sparking piece of machinery off of his torso, but his efforts were rapidly weakening.

 _"Don't you dare, apprentice,"_ Slade hissed through the earpiece.

Trigger looked down at Robin. What was worth more to him? The life of another human—admittedly an enemy—or an order from his certainly unethical master? He crouched down and grabbed the edge of the metre-wide piece, grunting with the effort of heaving it up just enough for Robin to wriggle free. The Titans' leader was coughing too hard to breathe and Trigger knew that there was no way he was going to get out of here without help.

" _Trigger!"_ Slade roared into the earpiece, and Trigger winced at the sudden blast of noise. _"Leave him!"_

Trigger, seized by a sudden anger, ripped the earpiece out and threw it into the fire. He knew that he was in all hell when he returned to his master, but no matter what the man in the mask said, Trigger couldn't leave Robin to die here. He bent down and grabbed his arm, slinging it over his shoulder and hauling Robin to his feet, moving to the exit as quickly as he could. Robin's breathing was raspy and weak—he was fading fast. Against his better judgment, Trigger pulled his own mask off and jammed it onto Robin's face. Almost instantly the smoke burned his nose and mouth, and Trigger began to cough harder and harder as he stumbled toward the exit, barely able to see through the black clouds and burning flames. He knew that the way to escape a fire was to crawl, but he didn't know that he could get them both out in time.

He shouldered aside another piece of debris and staggered outside, much to the shock of the three Titans outside, who were trying to reach the missing pair on their little yellow communicators. Trigger pulled his mask off Robin and put it back on, then dumped the barely-conscious youth into a horrified Starfire's arms. "Present for you," he rasped, before turning on his heel and racing back into the flaming factory.

Tears streaming down his face, Trigger tripped over Beast Boy once he was a few yards in. Blood was soaking one of his legs; it looked like he had gotten stuck and had to rip himself free. Trigger bent down and grabbed his limp arms, stepping on the edges of the feet and pulling sharply on his wrists, yanking him up to his feet and stooping so that the green shapeshifter fell over his shoulder. Lifting him with a painful cough of effort and wondering how a kid this small could be as dense as he was, Trigger staggered back toward the exit.

Some of the debris was lifted away from the hole in the wall, courtesy of the now-familiar black magic. Cyborg rushed in, massive form blotting out the glimpse of dying sunlight that peeked timidly through the smoke. He grabbed Beast Boy in one hand and Trigger in the other, dragging them both out of the burning factory and hauling them a safe distance away.

Trigger wriggled out of Cyborg's grip and collapsed onto his hands and knees, coughing so hard that he was sure he was going to lose his lungs and see them spill onto the ground, torn apart by the force of his coughs. Dimly aware that the Titans' attention was currently occupied as they checked to make sure that Beast Boy and Robin were okay, he wondered if he could make a break for it and get away before they caught him and imprisoned him again.

"Why did you pull them out?" Raven's voice neatly cleaved that plan in two and Trigger looked up at her, wiping his eyes on the back of his wrist.

"Nobody deserves to die like that," he rasped. "And I couldn't help but notice that you three conveniently didn't go back in to save your _friends—_ did you expect them to follow you out?"

"We are not bad friends!" Starfire protested in a high, panicked voice. "We thought they had escaped another way—we wanted to make sure that we did not endanger ourselves, and also require saving!"

Trigger grunted, coughing again. That _did_ make sense, he admitted grudgingly to himself. Feeling eyes on the side of his head, he turned and saw Cyborg staring piercingly at him. "Going to take me prisoner again?" He asked weakly.

Cyborg looked at Raven and Starfire, and Trigger watched as something passed between the three. "No," Cyborg said after a long moment. Beast Boy stirred faintly in his arms, giving a cough that was no more than a breath. "No," he said again. "We'll let you go...this time."

They turned as one and moved away, supporting their friends, leaving Trigger on his knees, his shadow cast long and thin by the fire blazing behind him.


	20. Chapter 20

**Author's Note:** _Apologies for the short chapter, but things on my side of the sky have been crazier than a bag full of cats. Will update further when able. ~Undiscovered_

 **Chapter Twenty: It Begins**

Terror unlike any Trigger had ever known flooded through his veins as he stood before Slade, his heart thundering in his chest and hammering out a hellish tattoo against his ribs—from the way that Slade stood, so silent with his hands clasped behind his back and his head cocked to the side, he knew that his masked master was listening to the pounding of his heart. The waiting was the worst part; he _knew_ that he was in for all hell. Throwing his earpiece into the fire and directly disobeying orders wasn't exactly going to go over well. _If I believed that, I could be on one of those World's Dumbest Criminals shows,_ Trigger thought, and felt the crazy urge to laugh and was immensely grateful that he still wore his mask so that Slade couldn't see the corners of his mouth twitching in almost delirious fear.

"Trigger, Trigger, Trigger," Slade said at last, his voice so soft and calm that it sent a thrill of terror prickling down Trigger's spine. "You made a very unwise decision, didn't you."

Trigger swallowed and raised his head, keeping his eyes lowered for a hesitant moment before meeting Slade's emotionless gaze. "I couldn't just let them die like that," he said quietly. "Even if they're my enemies."

Slade descended a few steps from the metal staircase he stood on, his boots the only sound in the dark warehouse room. "You've never had a problem with killing before," he said. "The man in the orphanage—I looked into it, you know. He died after you beat him with that skillet. Quite a savage move on your part, I do confess that I was impressed by the sheer brutality."

Trigger shifted his weight from foot to foot, rubbing his palms with his thumbs. "I didn't mean to kill him! I...I didn't have a choice," he whispered.

"Oh, but you _did._ " Slade stepped off the staircase and leaned forward, his voice dripping with malice. "One simple blow to the head would have done it. But no, Trigger. You decided that it would be best to ensure that he has a closed-casket funeral."

"Stop," Trigger whispered, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Did you really think that there would be no blood on your hands?" Slade asked, taking another step closer. "Were you really so stupid, so blind? Did you believe that maybe you were _innocent_ despite that excessive brutality?"

"Please," Trigger could feel himself beginning to tremble.

"You failed the test, Trigger," Slade growled, gripping him by the shoulders. His fingers dug in painfully and Trigger did his best to fight the instinct to pull away or struggle. "I gave you an order. Not only did you fail to execute my command, but your disobedience was thought-out and deliberate."

Trigger shook his head frantically, his light brown hair brushing across his forehead. "I couldn't let two kids burn to death! Did you know that burning is the most painful way to die? How could anyone with any shred of humanity turn his back on a couple of teenagers and walk away as they burned alive?"

"Someone who was loyal would," Slade hissed. "If you valued anything that I've given to you, if _you_ felt even the _slightest_ bit of gratitude—"

"I do!" Trigger protested, wincing as Slade's grip tightened further yet, sending stabs of pain through his shoulders even through the suit's protection. "You saved my life, how could I not—"

"You would have obeyed me!" Slade roared suddenly, letting Trigger go. Before he could so much as register his release, Slade had ripped his mask off with one hand and backhanded him so fiercely across the face that he crashed to the floor, pain exploding through his cheek and jaw. Trigger stared up at Slade, his turquoise eyes wide with fear and shock.

"Don't look so surprised," Slade said coldly. "You've dealt with worse."

Trigger didn't answer, touching the side of his face gingerly and wincing as he saw blood on the tips of his fingers.

"Don't make me regret taking you on as my apprentice," Slade whispered, his single eye narrowing to a slit, and with that he turned and stalked away into the shadows.

Trigger lay there for a moment longer, making sure that he was gone, before sitting up slowly and reaching for the black mask that had clattered to the floor several feet away. He picked it up and put it back on, the cool interior soothing the pain, albeit only slightly. "He hit me," Trigger murmured to himself, his hands trembling as he fastened the mask into place. "He's...that's never happened before." Almost childish fear coursed through him as he got slowly to his feet. What was he supposed to do? One of the two people in the world that he trusted had just hit him so hard that he had been knocked off his feet...but... _I deserved it,_ Trigger thought to himself, the pain settling into a fierce pulsing rhythm that throbbed along almost the entire left side of his face. _I defied him—he must feel betrayed. I'm supposed to be his apprentice—no, I_ am _his apprentice! Obeying him is my job. That's what he took me on to do... He just got mad. It won't happen again._


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter Twenty-One: How Far is Far Enough?**

Trigger noticed Slade keeping a much closer eye on him than usual in the days that followed, but he had expected nothing less. He supposed that he would have acted the same way if their roles had been reversed, but every time he caught the masked man's eye trained on him, a horrible feeling rose in his stomach, like something cold and twisting was burrowing beneath his skin. He distracted himself as much as he could, hitting the old brown punching bag harder and harder until he felt like his bones were going to come through his knuckles in a bloody, splintery mess. _Wham!_ The Titans' rushing at him, attacking without mercy. _Wham!_ The flames erupting from crushed machinery, leaping up the walls like creatures possessed. _Wham!_ The dawning realization that Robin and Beast Boy were still inside the factory. _Wham!_ The burning of the smoke in his throat and eyes, the heaviness of their limp bodies slung across his shoulders as he carried his enemies toward safety.

Trigger stopped, breathing hard, dull pain pulsing through his hands and wrists as he pressed a forearm against the top of the bag, leaning his forehead wearily against it and feeling the sweat trickle from his hair down onto his skin. His shoulders rose and fell and his shirt clung to his back. The tension between himself and Slade was almost overwhelming; he felt like he was trapped in a glass box with only an inch of air left as cold, calm, and deadly water slowly swelled up around his body.

Leng hadn't come around since before the factory incident, and Trigger missed his compassion. There was something very soothing about him, something that Trigger trusted more than anything about Slade; it was like comparing a service dog to a hungry wolf. Part of Trigger wondered if Slade was somehow keeping him away, isolating the one person that he was truly comfortable with. He pushed himself off the punching bag, standing upright again, but all the energy had somehow leeched out of him. He had no motivation to hit anything anymore.

Trigger paced to the climbing wall, scaling it despite the ache in his arms. He hauled himself to the top and moved as far as he could from the edge, pressing his back against the cold concrete of the warehouse wall, drawing his knees slowly up to his chest and resting his chin on them, thinking. The bruise on his face had become a nasty shade of blue and green, with faint touches of yellow around the edges. There were almost no reflective surfaces in Slade's lair, but Trigger kept his mask on all the time so he would never have to see himself, even by accident. He touched the hard black plastic that covered his cheek, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the jagged Y-shaped scar that the dog had given him, skimming over the crooked shape as it always did when he was anxious or on edge.

It wasn't that he had never been hit before; he had been punched, slapped, kicked, and beaten more times than he could remember. But he had shrouded his heart in ice that grew thicker and thicker with every day that he spent at the T. O. I. That ice had never been so much as scratched before until, with a kind word and the promise of safety, it had melted away and left him as raw and vulnerable as a wound.

What hurt more? Was it knowing that he had been tricked into letting his so carefully constructed guard down the instant someone showed him kindness? Was he mad at _Slade_? _No,_ he told himself, squashing the thought as soon as it came up. _If it weren't for Slade, I would still be in that hellhole with Mistress Fire Poker clomping around, dishing up whatever horrible punishments her sick, sadistic brain could come up with._ Anything _is better than that place...anything, anywhere at all._

He closed his eyes and rocked softly back and forth, the curve of his spine ever so lightly touching the concrete before he leaned forward again. The repetitiveness was soothing; he could predict his movements and even that tiny thing was comforting because he could control it. There were no bizarre variables thrown in from outside, just the steady back and forth, back and forth...

For a reason unknown to him, Trigger found himself remembering what it was like to be a child. While his early years had been by no means a joyful time, part of him wondered if there was indeed a certain kind of wisdom that he had lost with age. When he was small, anyone who hit him would be immediately marked as a bully, as someone to avoid at all costs. Of course, Trigger had rapidly learned to hit back in the dog-eat-dog world of the T.O.I., and yet...

He looked back to where the punching bag hung, swinging ever so slightly on its chain. _Are we so different?_ It seemed an odd question to consider, comparing a skinny teenager with a sand-filled leather cylinder, but maybe they weren't so different after all. _Do I vent my anger on that bag the same way that Slade vents his on me?_ He bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood as confusion warred in his brain, ferocious and ruthless as clashing armies. Part of him knew that his master was dangerous, very much so, but the other naive side of his mind would do anything to believe that the bruise covering almost half of his entire face was the result of a split-second loss of control, a one-time occurrence that maybe, just maybe, Slade regretted.

But did he, really?

Trigger moved back to the edge of the wall and let his legs dangle over the side, idly thumping his heels against the structure. Why were there never any easy answers? Just how far was far enough?

"Trigger."

Trigger's stomach lurched sickly as he heard Slade calling him and hastened to scramble downward, moving with an almost apelike speed and navigating more from memory than sight. He didn't want to make Slade wait any longer than humanly possible.

Slade stood, impassive as ever, his single visible eye fixed coldly on Trigger. "Take your mask off."

Trigger obeyed without a word, raising his hands and unfastening it. He felt stupidly vulnerable without his mask, like his biggest weakness was bared to the world simply by exposing his face. Slade's gloved fingers gripped Trigger's chin and raised it, forcing their eyes to meet. Trigger didn't let himself look away, even though Slade's unblinking stare made him feel like his very soul was frosting over. Part of him hoped, now that Slade was examining the severity of the ugly bruise on his apprentice's face, that he would voice some regret, but he didn't say a word as he let Trigger go.

"Is there a reason you called me?" Trigger asked after another uncomfortable moment had passed.

Slade sprang at him with a battle-cry and Trigger threw himself backward. So it was to be another unannounced combat session? Very well; it wasn't the first, and the rush of adrenaline would be a welcome invitation; it would force his mind to stop over-analyzing the slap. He danced out of reach of Slade's whirling kick, so powerful that he felt the rush of air on his skin, before darting in with snakelike speed to land a strike directly in Slade's back. Slade stumbled and came around with a vengeance; Trigger's heart nearly steamrollered right through his ribcage in panic. If he had ever thought that he had seen Slade fight before, that opinion was soundly trounced as he scrambled out of the way of the fury of punches and kicks, all technique forgotten. No sooner had he dared turn around to try to land in a hit of his own than Slade knocked his legs out from beneath him with a swooping kick that must have taken years to perfect.

Trigger hit the ground hard, the shock jarring his elbow and shoulder, and then Slade was on top of him with both hands around his throat. It should have stopped there. The battle always ended with Slade pinning Trigger in some inescapable pose.

But not this time.

Slade began to squeeze.

Trigger squirmed but didn't truly fight, certain that Slade was going to release him and let him up any moment, but when the pressure continued to build and Slade's eye narrowed in what looked terrifyingly like hatred, terror set in. He batted Slade's wrist, trying to tap out and signal his master's clear victory, but Slade's hands only tightened. Trigger's turquoise eyes widened in very real fear as Slade's icy stare burned into him and he began to struggle, trying to buck Slade off, but he was too heavy! Words were choked off as his vision blurred in and out, black spots flickering in front of his eyes. _Fight harder!_ His brain screamed desperately. _FIGHT HARDER!_

Trigger thrashed desperately as his windpipe continued to be crushed by Slade's vicegrip. Pain throbbed through his neck and into his head like an ever-strengthening tide and he gasped frantically, trying and failing to gain even the smallest bit of air. His hands clawed at Slade's, unable to pry those powerful fingers away...

His struggles began to weaken.

The world of his peripheral vision was failing fast, blackness settling in the corners of his eyes until Slade's face was all that remained. _I'm going to die,_ Trigger thought in terror, and with a violent twist of his head he managed to sink his teeth into Slade's hand. Shifting his grip, Slade let go with one hand and smacked him away, adjusting his hands to keep them safely out of range.

Trigger twisted and wriggled but didn't look away, a small voice telling him that no matter what, he had to stare Slade down, even as he died. Just when he thought that he would slip away into unending oblivion, Slade let go just as suddenly as it had all began and stood up. Trigger rolled onto his side, bringing his hands up to shield his throat as he coughed and gasped, every breath feeling like life was being pumped back into him. Horrible pain pulsed through his neck and his head spun dizzily, but he could breathe again!

"Take note, apprentice," Slade said coldly, gazing dispassionately down at him. "That is what you are going to do the next time you're ordered to bring down the Titans."

Trigger nodded instinctively, still coughing so hard that he half expected to vomit up his lungs and his thudding heart. Dimly his ears registered the sounds of Slade's retreating footsteps and he lay on the floor, gradually growing still. The man who had saved his life had almost ended it, and the question from before echoed faintly in Trigger's mind: _how far is far enough?_


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter Twenty-Two: A Very Bad Idea**

If anyone had told Trigger that within the space of forty-eight hours, he would have been nearly strangled by someone he trusted and then found himself sitting on the Titans' roof, he would have recommended a lobotomy. Yet life didn't lie; he perched on the edge of the giant T, his legs dangling over the side as he gazed unseeingly over the crystalline bay. The evening light crested the waves with diamonds, and the whitecaps flashed blindingly into his eyes as the brilliant orange light glided with bird-like ease over the surface of the water.

Slade had seen him leave, that he knew, but for whatever reason he hadn't elected to _do_ anything about it. Trigger needed to think, and for whatever reason his mind had decided that the best place to do that was on the roof of his enemies. _What a wonderful idea, Trigger,_ Trigger thought angrily to himself, resting his elbows on his knees and curling his fists into his light brown hair, squeezing hard enough to hurt. _Maybe tomorrow you should play hopscotch on a couple of land mines; that makes exactly as much sense as this does._

As he had expected, Slade's hands had left angry, dark purple bruises around his throat in a macabre sort of necklace. _A choker necklace,_ Trigger thought, and smirked. The tops of the ugly marks were just barely visible above the collar of his suit; at a glance they might be mistaken for misplaced shadows.

 _If he were just trying to tell me that he wanted me to...take care of...the Titans the next time we faced off, why didn't he just say that? If what he said about the orphanage guard is true, he knows that I_ will _kill if I really have to. Was almost strangling me just his way of proving his point?_ Questions pursued each other wildly through his head, getting him as far as a dog chasing its tail; around and around in dizzy circles he went, never getting any closer to even a half-solid answer.

The part of his brain that wasn't desperately trying to puzzle through the prior days' events was screaming that he had to get _off the roof,_ what if they saw him? He had climbed right up the side of the Tower, thanks to a special pair of gloves that Leng had designed, specifically with scrambling up walls in mind, but it would be a lot harder to get down than it was to reach the top. If he jumped and didn't have Beast Boy as a shield/parachute, he would hit the rocks at the Tower's base like a garbage bag full of soup: _splat._

 _Delightful image, there,_ he thought dryly to himself, peering down at the small island below him and listening to the crashing hiss of waves as they struck and broke against the rock, dissolving into foam. _I suppose that your final act of pointless defiance could be to make Spiky clean up your innards from his doorstep._

Trigger idly entertained the idea of simply leaning forward and losing his balance, but he knew before the thought even fully formed that he wasn't going to do it. What would it accomplish? Nothing. If anything, it would be giving up and announcing to the world that Slade had beaten him at whatever game this was.

A noise behind him made him whip around, his heart leaping to his throat. It was hard to say whether he or Starfire was the more surprised; a long moment passed where they just stared at each other like a pair of deer caught in fast-approaching headlights.

"What are you doing here?" Starfire demanded, rising aggressively into the air as twin balls of green light began to glow around her fists.

"I'm sorry I called you a space-slut," Trigger said, blinking. He hadn't planned on saying that, but the words were out in the open now and he wasn't going to make any moves to take them back. In fact, as he thought about them, he realized that he meant it.

"You did not come all the way to our home to apologize for an insult," she growled, an interesting sound given the pitch of her voice. To Trigger's relief, at least she kicked the roof-hatch closed; doubtless she was thinking of annihilating him herself.

"You're right, I didn't," Trigger agreed wearily. He reached to the sheath on his back, drew his sword, and tossed it aside. The blade clattered across the roof as it bounced several feet away, and Trigger got slowly to his feet, raising his hands. "Going to blast me with those?" He nodded at her blazing fists.

"I have not decided," she answered, eyeing him warily. "Why are you here?"

"I don't know," Trigger said honestly. "I've been thinking, and I needed somewhere to get away to."

"Get away from what?"

"Slade, who else?"

"Why?"

Trigger pulled down his collar just enough for her to see the angry bruises around his throat before he adjusted his suit, letting the material hide the marks again. "We disagreed on whether or not I should have pulled your friends out of the fire," he said shortly, glad that his mask hid most of the bruise on his face.

"I am not surprised," Starfire said, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. After a moment, though, her glare softened. "Did he hurt you?"

Trigger laughed mirthlessly. "Not as badly as I was expecting him to," he confessed. "So...can we talk, or...?"

She narrowed her eyes again.

"I thought so," Trigger sighed. "I'm going to sit down again, okay?" He waited for her to give him a short, jerky nod before lowering himself to the roof, crossing his legs. After a moment she did the same, although she floated an inch or two above the ground, perhaps as a reminder to him that trying to use _her_ as a parachute wouldn't work.

"Tell me why you are here," she said again.

"Which version do you want? The brief and confusing one, or the sad backstory?"

"Whichever will make me understand why you are so evil," she replied coldly.

Her words felt like another blow to the face. He wasn't _evil..._ was he? Trigger swallowed, looking at the ground as he tried to figure out where to begin. "Promise me that you won't call the rest of the team on me until I've at least finished my story," he said.

"Maybe I already have called them," she retorted.

"I'm not _quite_ stupid enough to believe that, unfortunately," Trigger replied. "If you had let them know, then I'm pretty sure that I would be in several pieces on the ground by now—I'd be willing to bet that you and your friends don't exactly like me at the moment."

"We never did," Starfire said harshly. "The only reason that I have not separated you myself is because you saved two of my friends."

"Well, I suppose that's a good thing," Trigger sighed. "Can you...get rid of those?" He gestured at the orbs of light glowing at her hands. "You're making me nervous."

"You should be," she muttered, but did as he asked. "Explain yourself, please."

He blinked—he hadn't been expecting it to be phrased as a request. "Do you know about the Transformation Orphan Institute? I guess I should start at the beginning."

She shook her head, her long dark red hair swinging back and forth.

"It's a very bad place; it probably makes jail look like a party. Anyway, that's where I lived ever since I was about two years old." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, fortifying himself against the barrage of memories that was just waiting to try to drown him. "All sorts of stuff goes on behind those doors, you know; starving kids, adults making them drink dishwater, stripping them of all human dignity." Seeing the look in her eyes, he added quickly, "I'm not telling you this to make you feel sorry for me—I neither expect nor deserve sympathy. This is the truth. When I was there, the guards used to make me say that my parents didn't care about me, didn't want me, and that's why I was abandoned there." He ran his fingers through his hair.

"Why would they do those things to a child?" Starfire asked, tilting her head.

Trigger shrugged one shoulder, not meeting her inquisitive eyes. "I don't know, and frankly, I don't want to. Anyway, that's the place I lived in for as long as I can remember, until a man named Leng saved me."

Instantly she was back on high alert. "He is another villain?"

"No!" Trigger exclaimed, his head jolting up. The movement startled her, evidently; another ball of green light was summoned and her fist was pointed directly at his face. "No," he said again, more softly. "No, Leng's not a criminal. He's...he's the only good man I think I've ever met. He's helped me without ever asking for anything in return." He looked at the ground again. "He saved my life by getting me out of there." Trigger deemed it best not to mention the circumstances under which he had escaped.

"Does Leng work for Slade?" Starfire asked, letting the green light evaporate.

Trigger nodded. "But he's not a bad person," he reiterated. "He's...Leng's scared of Slade, but I've seen him stand up to him when it comes to what he thinks will help me." An unexpected pain seared through his heart as he spoke the words, and he was silent for a moment before continuing with his story. "He said that Slade had been watching me for a while, and wanted me to be his apprentice."

"Why did you agree?" Starfire asked.

"Because at that point, Slade was the only kindness I had ever known," Trigger confessed, beginning to feel almost sick. "He didn't degrade me, attack me like the guards had...he seemed like a good guy."

Starfire's eyes softened. "And so you trusted him."

Trigger nodded, feeling the black monster of shame raise its ugly head. "When he started asking me to steal things, I didn't question it."

Starfire's anger had almost dissipated completely on the outside, and she was now regarding him with something akin to pity.

"Then I heard about Terra, and what happened to her, and...if anything, I thought more of Slade for it because to me, it seemed like he was offering a troubled kid a normal way of life."

The anger was back and Trigger bowed his head in submission, trying to wordlessly calm her down. "But then Slade started...he started changing. When I pulled Robin and Beast Boy out of the factory, that was the first time he hit me." He removed his mask and she gasped as she saw the ugly bruise. He rubbed the jagged Y-shaped scar on his cheek as he always did when he was nervous. "The next day, well, he...this happened," he concluded lamely, gesturing to his neck.

"And so you ran?"

"I didn't know what else to do," Trigger defended himself. "I'm no match for Slade physically, and I didn't know where to go."

"So you climbed our house and sat on our roof?"

"Basically."

Silence stretched between them until Starfire looked at him closely. "Why did you stab Beast Boy?"

Trigger winced. "I had to get back to Slade," he said, pitifully aware of how stupid that sounded. "All I could think of was that the person I owed everything to thought that I betrayed him; my earpiece was gone and so I had no way of reaching him and letting Slade know what was going on."

"And so you put a knife into my friend's back!"

"It was a bad idea," Trigger said lamely.

"You do not say?"

Trigger shrugged.

"Why did you save my friends from the factory?" Starfire asked, and Trigger silently thanked any existing gods that she was willing to move on so easily. "I would think that Slade would have wanted you to leave them inside."

"He did," Trigger told her, and her emerald eyes widened in shock.

"And you did not obey?"

"Obviously," Trigger said and immediately cursed himself for not thinking about what he was saying. "Slade told me to leave them but burning to death is the most painful way to go, and whatever he said I couldn't just let a couple of kids die, especially not like that."

"You disobeyed your master's order and saved their lives, and he did that to you?" She half-lifted a hand as though she were going to touch his face, and he pulled back slightly, nodding. Starfire dropped her arm and looked at him for a long while. "I believe that it would be appropriate to offer...a hug?"

Trigger stared. That was definitely the last thing he expected to hear! "...Why?" He asked, caught offguard.

"You have lived through many very sad things," she said, like that explained everything.

"But I almost killed your friend."

"And you saved them," she countered.

"...This is a ploy to put a knife in _my_ back, isn't it?"

She almost smiled before leaning forward and putting her arms around him, gingerly. Trigger braced himself for a burning pain and the swoop of death, but weirdly enough, that didn't happen. She just...held him.

Trigger wasn't sure how to deal with this—he hadn't been hugged in...in as long as he could remember, really. This was an entirely new sensation, but unlike most of the ones he was familiar with, it was pleasant and didn't hurt.

Starfire retracted her arms and Trigger was almost tempted to ask her to please, don't let go just yet, but he kept his mouth shut. "I...I suppose you're going to bring in your team now," he said in what was almost a whisper.

Starfire nodded.

"And...are they going to kill me?"

"I will do my best to keep them from harming you," Starfire told him quietly, "but I will not be able to make you any promises."

Trigger nodded, his heart beginning to pound harder than it ever had before as she glided back to the hatch, opened it, and disappeared inside, leaving him alone to await his fate, however painful it was going to be...if he survived it.


	23. Chapter 23

_Author's Note: I apologize for the very, VERY late upload; I've been very stressed out and overworked, and I'm sorry to leave you lovelies hanging for so long-things are starting to heat up for poor Trigger. Enjoy. ~Undiscovered_

 **Chapter Twenty-Three: The Worst Phone Call Ever**

Trigger faced the Titans, feeling like a slab of meat thrown into a pit of wild dogs; he was sure that he was going to be ripped apart at any second. Indeed, Cyborg looked entirely too ready to start the one-man bloodbath, and it was only Starfire's restraining hand on his arm that kept him back.

"So you expect us to take you in, just like that." Raven's dry, quiet voice was almost unbearable; Trigger almost wished that she would scream at him. "After everything you've done to us."

He shook his head in frustration. "No, I—"

"Then why are you here?" Beast Boy shot back, his dark green eyes narrowed and his hands clenched into fists. "Going to try to kill more of us?"

"I haven't killed _any_ of you!" Trigger protested, only just stopping himself from adding ' _you bloodthirsty little monster'_ onto the end of the sentence. "And, if you recall, _I_ kept _you_ from burning to death!"

"I suppose that makes you a hero," Cyborg said coldly, the hate in his voice making Trigger's blood turn to ice.

"I don't claim to be a hero," Trigger said, fighting to keep the desperation out of his voice. _Why_ had he come? He should have known that hostility was the only thing that would meet him here... He looked frantically at Robin. " _You_ know what it's like being trapped by Slade." He lowered his voice, trying to disguise the pleading note that crept into his words.

"I also know what it's like to work for him," Robin answered stonily. "How do we know that you're not here on some sort of spying mission?" The sharp line of his jaw hardened. "I believed that you wanted to change, and you put a knife in my friend's back and jumped out the window. I'm not making that mistake again."

"Has all that hair gel fried your brain?" Trigger demanded, yanking off his mask with one hand and pulling his collar down with the other, and a tiny part of him was pleased when all but Cyborg and Raven flinched slightly when they saw the deep purple bruises that stained his pale skin. "Do you honestly think that I would stay with a psychopath who did this to me when I refused to let a couple of kids burn to death?"

"He has a point," Starfire said softly.

"Why are you defending him?" Raven asked sharply. "Did what happened with Terra teach you _nothing_?"

"Leave her out of this," Beast Boy growled, turning to glare at her.

"Listen to me!" Trigger exclaimed. "If you want to throw me off this Tower, go ahead and do it." He half raised his arms in an invitation. "I'm not a threat! Look! I'm unarmed and hilariously outmatched—do you think that I could fight you even if I wanted to?" He lowered his voice and stared them all hard in the eyes. "I ran because I was _scared._ I _am_ scared. I don't know if he's hunting me right now, but I can imagine what he's going to do to me when he catches me." The words made his heart begin to race with fear, and he nervously rubbed his thumbs against his palms. "If you want me to go, I'll go. I'll find one of those halfway houses and pray that I live until tomorrow, okay?" He turned and faced the bay, instantly realizing exactly what was wrong with that plan—he had no idea how to get down from here. _Shit,_ he thought.

"Why did Slade want _you_?" Cyborg asked abruptly, and Trigger pivoted back around, working hard to mask the relief that threatened to flood across his face. "Robin has direct links to the rest of us, and Terra was—he knew that he could get to her," he finished, with a glance at Beast Boy, who looked at his shoes. "If what you told Star is true, you're a bastard from the streets. What could a man like Slade possibly expect from _you_?"

Trigger didn't miss the insulting implications in the way Cyborg spoke, but he chose to ignore them. His shoulders slumped. "Your guess is as good as mine," he said tiredly, "and I think that he wanted me because he knew that if he got me out of there, I'd be indebted to him. I'd owe him, and he guessed right when he thought that having leverage over me would make me more inclined to do what he said." He met Cyborg's cold stare with unflinching weariness. "Besides...thanks to all the shit I've gone through, I thought that Slade was _kind._ " The disgust in his voice was aimed at himself, and it was impossible to mistake it for anything other than complete and utter self-loathing. "You beat a dog often enough and soon it'll think that the person who kicks it only once in a while is the best thing that's ever happened to it."

His words were met with silence until Robin said, almost to himself, "Slade _is_ a master manipulator..."

Trigger didn't respond to that because the only thing he could think to say was 'Hallelujah, your brain _hasn't_ been fried!' and he felt like that wouldn't go over very well.

"So..." Raven spoke up, "what are we going to do with him?"

"We cannot turn him away," Starfire said softly, and everyone turned to stare at her with varying degrees of astonishment, Trigger included. She backed up a pace, folding her arms defensively over her chest. "If we abandon him to his death we are no better than Slade."

"There's no guarantee that he would actually die," Raven muttered, but nobody answered her.

Hope began to tentatively kindle in Trigger's chest. He had never expected them to believe him or even let him live after what he had done to Beast Boy! He didn't dare speak in case he managed to destroy this fragile conclusion that they seemed to be tiptoeing toward. The moment hung in the air like a thing made of spun glass, so precious and fine that the slightest breath threatened to shatter it beyond the possibility of repair.

And shattered it was.

There was a shrill beeping from below their feet and Robin raised an eyebrow. "Someone's calling us."

"You give your number to a lot of people?" Trigger couldn't help but ask.

"Shut up," Cyborg growled.

"I'll go see who it is," Beast Boy said. He opened the roof hatch and disappeared through it. As if on some unspoken order, Robin, Raven, and Starfire followed after him. Cyborg remained, turning on Trigger and suddenly seizing him by the upper arms so tightly that Trigger felt his bones creak. His feet left the roof as Cyborg lifted him up almost a foot before he leaned close to him and spoke in a very low voice. "Listen to me, kid. If you so much as _look_ at my friends in a way that I don't like, I promise I'll do much worse than rip your muscle."

"...Like what?" Trigger mentally kicked himself for asking; provoking a man who could bench-press a bus was not on the list of his better ideas.

"I'll rip your legs _off_." With that, Cyborg dropped him roughly and disappeared through the hatch. Trigger stood alone on the roof, shaken though he didn't know why. This was what he expected, after all...tentatively, he followed the Titans into the Tower.

He smacked into Starfire as she came hurtling around the corner, her emerald eyes wide and wild and her long hair streaming behind her like a trail of flame. "Trigger," she gasped.

Instantly his senses jumped into high alert and he tensed from head to toe. "What happened?" He asked, his heart beginning to pound.

She grabbed his wrist. "You must see this," she whispered, still hovering about a foot off the ground as she began to tow him down the hallway.

"Did you guys get prank called?" Trigger asked with a nervous not-laugh. "Pizza order gone wrong or something?"

"We have not requested any pizza," Starfire said worriedly.

"It was a joke," Trigger said.

"Yes, but this is not!" She pulled him around the corner and Trigger stopped as suddenly as though he had been poleaxed.

Slade leered at him from the screen, his single showing eye narrowed.

"You guys gave your number to _Slade_?" Trigger demanded in a voice gone high with terror. "Planning a party or something?"

"My dear apprentice, I am going to remove your vocal chords when you come back to me," Slade purred dangerously.

"I would sooner cover myself in blood and throw myself to a pack of rabid wolves than go back to you," Trigger retorted. "You're a monster, a psychopath!"

Slade cocked his head and Trigger could have sword that he was smiling beneath his mask. "Oh, but you _will,_ Trigger."

Trigger crossed his arms over his chest and clenched his jaw, trying desperately to hide his fear, and he was certain that the other Titans could hear the terrified thundering of his heart. "What makes you so sure?"

Slade didn't reply. He merely stepped aside, and when Trigger saw what was behind him a scream of horror and rage tore itself from his throat. Robin had to grab him by the arms to stop him from throwing himself at the screen in fury and desperation.

"Who is that?" Beast Boy asked, forehead furrowing at the sight of the man tied to a chair, his shoulders slumped forward and his black hair slick with scarlet blood. His glasses were cracked and knocked askew, and one of his closed eyes was blacked.

"If you want to save Leng," Slade purred, "you know where to find me."


	24. Chapter 24

_Hey lovelies! A thousand pardons for leaving you in suspense for so long; things have been wild over here and I've barely had time to work on my other stories. But now that things have settled down, I'll do my best to upload fairly regularly. Happy Holidays to all of you! ~Undiscovered_

 **Chapter Twenty-Four: Death**

"You're not stopping me." Trigger slid his sword into the sheath across his back and secured the hard black mask over his face.

"Trigger, it's a trap," Robin told him. "This is exactly what Slade wants you to do!"

Trigger turned around, widening his turquoise eyes as much as he could. "A _trap? Really?_ Wow, Robin, I had _no idea_ Slade would think of using manipulation to get me to return to him. That's _very_ clever of you!"

"Yo, watch it," Cyborg growled quietly.

Trigger ignored him and tightened the strap that held his bullwhip against his belt. "That man saved my life," he said coldly. "Leng's the only person in the world who ever showed me a bit of kindness, and it'd be a damn way to repay him if I didn't at least try to return the favor. Now get out of my way."

Robin didn't move and Trigger clenched his hands into fists. "Move, or you're going to regret it, Spiky."

"Slade will kill you," Starfire said softly, her fingertips hovering at her chin. "He will not be pleased with your betrayal!"

"I don't care." Trigger shoved past Robin and stalked from the room. He needed a way to get across the bay, a way that was much, _much_ faster than swimming. Surely the Titans had a boat or something...?

"If you are indeed set on going back to him," Starfire said slowly, calling after him, "then I will go with you."

"Star!" Beast Boy exclaimed, turning to stare at her.

"Slade will not expect the six of us to come as one," she said defensively. "And we will have a better chance of rescuing this man—Leg?"

"Leng," Trigger corrected her, pausing at the doorway. His face softened. "You'd come with me?"

"We're supposed to be heroes," Raven put in, to Trigger's astonishment. "Some protectors we would be if we sat to the side and watched a punk like you try to kill himself."

"Thanks for that," Trigger muttered, but he meant it.

"Cyborg, Beast Boy, you in?" Robin asked, raising an eyebrow.

"If the rest of you are," Beast Boy said. "Cy?"

Cyborg shrugged his massive, shining shoulders, a slow smile creeping across his face. "When do I ever pass up a chance to kick some butt?"

The inside of the warehouse was black as pitch save for a single lightbulb dangling above a man slumped in a chair. Trigger, having made the rest of the Titans swear to hang back for both cover and the element of surprise, sprinted toward him. "Leng!"

Leng lifted his head slowly and a smile lit his decimated features. Trigger dropped onto his knees and began to saw through the bonds with the knife he kept in his boot. "Leng, we're gonna get you out of here...gonna get you away from Slade, okay?"

Leng coughed weakly, blood spewing from his mouth and spraying onto the cold concrete floor. "Trigger, look..."

"Easy," Trigger soothed, ripping at the cords with the blade. His shaking hands slipped and the blade cut deeply into the back of his wrist. His hand spasmed with pain, making him nearly drop the knife. "Shit! Easy, Leng, we're gonna get you out of here—I've brought help—"

"Have you now?" There was no mistaking that voice.

Trigger whipped around just in time to see the sole of Slade's boot as it rocketed toward his face, catapulting him backward. He rolled with the impact, coming up in a crouch as he was nearly blinded by the pain. Thank the indifferent powers above for the durability of the black mask, or otherwise he was certain that all the bones in his face would have shattered. Flinging himself out of the way, Trigger jumped to his feet as Slade rushed him again, driving him backward and away from Leng.

"You little traitor," Slade snarled, his single eye narrowed with malice as he tried to catch Trigger around the throat, missing by inches as the youth threw himself desperately to the side. "You're going to wish you were never born!"

"You can never do that to me," Trigger growled back, gaining enough ground to launch an attack of his own, though Slade blocked it with ease. "I've learned what life is, and I know the difference between good and evil!"

"I saved your _life,_ " Slade roared. He found his mark this time, his hand closing around Trigger's throat and crushing it in an iron grip. "I gave you a _purpose_! I gave you a _home_! You wouldn't have anything if it weren't for me, and this is how you repay me!" He threw him to the ground.

Trigger landed hard on his shoulder, gasping for air and clawing at the concrete as he tried to rise, body wracked by agonized fits of coughing. The truth of those words struck him like a bullet to the heart and he raised his head weakly. "I..."

"You ran when you should have stayed," Slade hissed, taking a step closer to him. The masked man towered above his apprentice, mighty and unshakable as a cliff looming above a sapling. "You took all the kindness and compassion I had showed you and threw it away."

Trigger rose to all fours, trying his hardest not to tremble. Where were the Titans? They were supposed to be his backup, his cover, his reinforcements! Had they abandoned him too?

Slade seemed to read his mind. "Where are your new friends, Trigger?" His voice was soft and deadly. "Were they _really_ going to help you save Leng, or did they just want a nice neat way of ridding themselves of a nuisance and a coward?"

Trigger closed his eyes tightly, his hand throbbing in pain as blood seeped through his glove and began pooling slowly onto the concrete floor. "They..."

"They left you," Slade told him, crouching down in front of him. There was a grim smile in his voice. "They left you when you needed them most...not so dissimilar from what you did to me, is it? Doesn't feel good, does it?" He curled his fingers into Trigger's light brown hair and pulled his head back, not roughly. "Do you understand now? We have nobody but each other."

Trigger looked into his master's narrowed eye and a terrible isolation swept through him, black as a nightmare and cold as the depths of the sea. Was betrayal his lot in life? Was Slade right? Were the Titans lingering back in the shadows, watching the show? How could they just let things unfold this way? Abandonment curled its familiar tentacles around Trigger's heart in a suffocating embrace, drawing him back into the murky depths of loneliness that he had come to know so intimately.

"I'll give you another chance," Slade said quietly. "Stay and serve me. Forget the hurt that you've been dealt, and the world will go on as it always has."

Another chance. The two words sounded almost holy. Slade had never failed to stand shoulder to shoulder with him, even though they hadn't seen eye to eye in the past. Beneath his mask, a smile began to tug at his mouth.

"HE'S LYING TO YOU!"

Leng's shout shattered the silence like a rock heaved out over the glassy surface of a pond, sheer weight and force breaking the water of tentative peace apart despite the icy promises that threatened to freeze truth in its tracks. Slade whipped around with a roar, throwing a knife that Trigger hadn't even seen him holding. He watched, unable to move, as the sleek weapon spun gracefully end over end, flying into the light before burying itself hilt-deep in Leng's chest with a terrible wet _thunk_.

There was a moment of ghastly silence before the explosive howl of banshee grief ripped free from Trigger's throat like an animal from a cage. He hurled himself at Slade in a flurry of rage-fueled strikes and slashes of a sword that he didn't even remember drawing, incoherent roars and curses accompanying the flash of his blade. Slade dodged backward in what was almost a dance, his ease and calm even more terrible than the sound replaying over and over in Trigger's ears, repeating on a hellish loop. _Thunk. Thunk. Thunk._ The dull collision of metal on injured flesh, of the sharpened edge embedding itself into bone.

Slade pivoted on his heel and brought one leg smashing into the side of Trigger's head. Pain exploded through his temple and he staggered but didn't fall. Slade grabbed him around the throat again and ripped the sword from his grasp, pinning him against the wall and trapping his apprentice's body with his own—he was too close for Trigger's kicks and punches to get any momentum as he was lifted off the ground by his neck. Slade began to laugh. "You know the best part of all this, Trigger? You actually believed that I _cared_ about you. The truth, dear child, is that you are _nothing_ to me, nothing more than a tool, a means to getting what I want. Your stupidity and naivete is what made you the perfect target: you were so desperate for approval and so starved for affection that you ran to me and believed, like a child, that you were worth something. You were so blindly hungry for any form of backhanded kindness—even from me—that you were willing to do anything I asked of you. You scrambled to please, like a do, and even when I sent you away with a kick, you came crawling back for more. Pathetic."

Turquoise eyes blazing with anger and shining with tears, Trigger abandoned his efforts of reaching Slade and began to claw at the iron fingers crushing his throat. He couldn't breathe and his head throbbed with every beat of his oxygen-starved heart—if he couldn't get free, Slade was likely to strangle him. "Go...to...hell!" The words were no more than a breath, a pale imitation of a snarl, but Slade dropped him. Trigger hit the ground like a ton of bricks, crumpling like a rag doll and coughing so hard he felt sure that he was going to vomit up ripped fragments of lung.

A booted foot slammed into his stomach and even with the suit's protection, the little air he had managed to take in was knocked away from him. Slade's single eye, alive with hate and fury, was the last clear image in Trigger's mind before the second knife came flashing down. The dull _thunk_ came again but this time it was accompanied by a burst of fire in Trigger's chest, burning bone deep. His mouth filled with blood and darkness flooded his vision, blotting out the world and snuffing out the candle of his short, violent life.


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter Twenty-Five: Tenderness and Torment**

Death wasn't something that people were supposed to wake up from. And yet Trigger felt his eyes opening. They burned from tears and anger, but the worse pain was the deep fire in his chest, licking cheerfully away at his bones and making his muscles shudder. "God..." Darkness weighed oppressively down around him, agony lacing his veins and torment trailing through his blood, but worse than the dark was the grief and the guilt.

"Leng..." Trigger squeezed his eyes shut as tears began to needle them fiercely. Was this a nightmare? In his mind's eye he saw that knife spinning end over end, burying itself in the chest of his only friend and snatching that light away forever. And Trigger had let him go alone, dying tied to that chair without even a hand to hold as he slipped away, soaked in his own blood. "Leng...!"

"Don't do that," came a dry voice from to his left. He turned his head, pain spearing through his chest, to see the outline of a cloaked figure floating about hip-height above the shadow-blanketed floor.

"What?" Trigger tried to sit up but a tendril of glowing black snaked out from the silhouette and pushed on his shoulders, gently restraining him. "Raven? Why are you in here?"

"The guys and Star decided to have a movie night," Raven responded shortly, her amethyst eyes shining softly in the dark. "They were being too loud, and I needed to meditate."

"Leng," Trigger whispered.

"That's what I told you not to do," Raven said. "You're going to drive yourself up the wall if you think about what you might have done. Leng's dead. You're almost dead. Life goes on."

"Aren't you just a ray of sunshine," Trigger growled. "Do you have any _idea_ what it's like to lose the only person in the world who cared about you?"

"Yes," Raven growled.

Trigger didn't respond.

"I know it hurts," Raven went on, her tone becoming surprisingly gentle. "But it can drive you out of your mind."

"I let him die alone," Trigger confessed wretchedly. "I thought going after Slade was more important—and where the hell _were you guys?_ " His voice rose in anger. "You were supposed to be my backup!"

The black magic formed a sort of tentacle, wrapping around the lower half of his head and muzzling him. "We were forming vantage points, making a strategy, when the warehouse walls shot up into the ceiling, forming one big room. At the same time, another set of walls came down—so thick that even Starfire couldn't rip through them. We were trapped inside. Slade had anticipated what we were going to do and he'd prepared for it. He beat all of us this time."

Trigger let his head fall back against the thin mattress, clenching his jaw tightly as the magic fell away.

"I'm sorry about your friend," Raven murmured, floating closer. "If it's any consolation to you, Cyborg brought his body back to the Tower so we could give him a proper burial when you're up to it."

"He did?"

He saw her silhouetted figure nod.

Trigger closed his eyes as tears trickled across his temples and slid into his hair. Leng. Leng, who had saved his life, had shown him kindness even back at the T.O.I., had treated him gently no matter what happened. And now he was dead. And it was all Trigger's fault.

"I can and will drug you to the roots of your hair if I need to," Raven told him sternly.

"I didn't even say anything!"

"I'm an empath," Raven said tersely. "The amount of negative energy you're sending out is both astounding and massively depressing."

"Excuse me for not being Mother Teresa at the moment," Trigger snapped. He saw Raven's arm reach toward a panel of softly blinking lights and the next second a dreamy lightness flooded through his veins, and he was drifting.

He woke to more pain, pulsing deeply in his chest and throbbing with every beat of his guilt-tortured heart. Nightmares had chased each other around his head, trapping him in a seemingly endless prison of horror; the drugs he had been dosed with kept him from waking until sunlight was streaming through the shining glass windows.

"You look awful," observed a voice from near the door.

Trigger raised his head and winced at a flash of pain from where he had been stabbed. Robin was leaning lightly against the wall, his forehead creased and a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I feel awful," Trigger responded dully.

Robin approached slowly and sat down in a nearby chair—Trigger was reminded of the first time this had happened, after he had been taken captive.

"I let Leng die," he mumbled.

Robin shook his head. "If there's one thing that I learned about Slade, it's that there's no stopping him once he gets an idea in his head. Had he decided to...that Leng should die, there would have been nothing you could have done to persuade him otherwise."

"He was alone," Trigger argued dully.

"No he wasn't," Robin insisted with a gentle force that made Trigger raise his eyes. "He saw you avenging him, he saw you attacking Slade."

"How do you know that that's what happened?"

"Raven says that you talk in your sleep," Robin shrugged his shoulders and leaned back, crossing his arms loosely over his chest.

"Have a good movie night?" Trigger asked somewhat bitterly, remembering Raven's words the night before. How dare they celebrate and relax so soon after a murder, especially Leng's? Trigger ground his teeth together and clenched his hands into fists, letting his head thump back against the pillow. If only there wasn't a deadly hole in his chest, he would have taught the Titans a lesson or two about grief and loss.

"We didn't have a movie night." Robin's perplexed voice broke through his vicious thoughts. "What gave you that idea?"

"That...that's what Raven said last night," Trigger told him, caught offguard. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember hearing any music or sound effects echoing down the hall. "She said the rest of you were being too loud and she couldn't meditate..."

Robin smiled, standing and making his way toward the door. "There was no movie," he said over his shoulder, his voice soft. "Raven stayed at your side all night to make sure that your heart never stopped beating."


	26. Chapter 26

_Here's a holiday gift for all of you! Have a joyous and memorable holiday, wherever you are and whatever you celebrate! All my love, Undiscovered_

 **Chapter Twenty-Six: Could This Become Home?**

"I'm telling you, you should have bugged Slade's suit when you had the chance," Trigger said grumpily, folding his arms over his bandaged chest.

"And exactly when would that have come?" Beast Boy raised a dark green eyebrow.

"Yeah, it's not exactly like we have Slade over every weekend," Cyborg pointed out.

Annoyed, Trigger tugged at the blue streak in his hair. The vibrancy of the dye was fading slightly, but it was still vivid. "Whenever you were fighting him! You guys have told me that you've encountered him time and again—"

"Because if Slade is clever enough to manipulate you, Robin, and Terra, not to mention preparing for all of us to attack in unity _and_ whatever tricks we've come up with in the past, he's surely going to be fooled by a tracking device attached to his body," Raven said with a sarcastic roll of her purple eyes.

"You must have _some_ idea of where he is," Trigger protested. Three days had passed since Leng's death, three days that he had spent chasing his thoughts in circles and, true to Raven's prediction, nearly driving himself out of his mind with guilt and grief. Three days that Slade had had to make his way to some godforsaken part of the world, somewhere he could plot and scheme his murderous path back to destruction.

Robin shook his head and even Starfire looked uncharacteristically glum. "We do not," she murmured, emerald eyes downcast.

"That dude turns up anywhere," Cyborg said. The bed next to Trigger's creaked slightly as his bulky metal body sank onto it. "He got knocked into a pit of lava and turned up a few months later!"

"I know it's hard for you to hear," Robin said, half-raising a hand like he wanted to put it on Trigger's shoulder, but he seemed to think better of it and drop it back down. "We're doing our best, believe me, but...Slade's not the only villain out there."

"Surely you've learned that putting those thugs in jail is a bad idea," Trigger said coolly, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, _how_ many times have they broken out now? Three thousand? Or was it four? Why can't you launch them into the stratosphere or something, make Cinderblock nothing more than a memory and a meteor? Catapulting fiends into deep space sounds much more efficient."

"Because that would make us no better than them," Raven growled, her eyes narrowing. "We're supposed to be heroes, and heroes don't kill people."

"But Trigger is a hero," Starfire said softly.

Everyone in the room turned to stare at her, Trigger's eyes practically bulging out of his skull in surprise.

Starfire shifted uncomfortably on her chair and chewed at the inside of her cheek before answering. "He saved two of our friends, did he not?"

"He put a knife in the back of one of them, did he not?" Beast Boy mumbled, reaching behind him to rub his spine, but strangely enough, he didn't look angry.

"Starfire, I'm not a hero," Trigger told her quietly. "Not even close. I'm just a confused kid, trying to figure out one end of life from the other. I fail more times than I can remember, and I've done terrible things. I don't even think that I'm a good person. Hell, most of the decent things I've done have been out of defiance or spite—what does that make me, then? Beast Boy's right. I stabbed him and would have killed any one of you if I thought it meant getting back where I was—where I thought I was supposed to be. I don't know what you're implying by calling me a hero, but I'm afraid that you're wrong there."

"Nice speech," Beast Boy said, rolling his eyes. "It was supposed to be a compliment, not a lesson in ethics."

Trigger felt his cheeks flush dark red and he looked away, embarrassed. Giving a self-conscious little cough, he glanced at Robin. "Do you at least have an _idea_ where Slade will turn up next? Or when?"

Robin shook his head again. "I'm sorry," he sighed. "I've been trying to catch him for years."

"It's bordered on obsession a few times," Cyborg said, nudging him gently with an elbow. There was a glimmer in his one real eye, but Trigger couldn't figure out if it was humor or something darker.

"It has," Robin confessed readily enough. "But if we do find something out, you'll be the first to know."

"Good," Trigger growled, "because I'm going to put my sword through his throat. He won't get away from me again, and I won't rest until I kill him myself."

"You've been stabbed." Raven looked almost amused. "I'm afraid you won't be able to keep that promise for a while yet—you need to heal." She gave Robin a significant look and he started.

"Right! Well, we were thinking..."

"You _were_?" Trigger asked with mock astonishment. No sooner had the words escaped him than he cursed himself nine ways to heaven for his seeming inability to be anything other than an asshole.

Surprisingly, none of the Titans got angry, or even seemed bothered. "Yes," Robin said patiently. "We were thinking that the hospital wing isn't a very good place for you to stay while you heal and recover from your...ordeal."

"Yeah?" Trigger asked warily, feeling his muscles beginning to tense up. His chest throbbed in pain, but he ignored it. If he was going to have to fight...

"Well, we'll show you," Robin said. "Can you walk, or do you need help?"

"I can walk," Trigger said instantly. He sat up slowly, clenching his teeth as tightly as he could to keep himself from groaning aloud from the rapidly intensifying ache in his chest, throbbing right above his heart.

"You sure?" Robin raised his eyebrows.

Trigger nodded, too tight-jawed to speak. He kept one hand on the thin mattress as he carefully eased himself to his feet.

"This way," Robin told him, giving him a long look before leading the way out of the hospital. Trigger followed slowly after him, forcing himself to focus on breathing in and out, in and out, in and out, the steady rhythm helping his mind stay occupied with something other than how difficult it was to stay upright. The little group traveled down the hall at a snail's pace, Trigger all too aware of how much he was slowing everyone down.

Starfire hovered protectively at his side as they walked, glancing at him every couple seconds in case he stumbled or surrendered to the pain. It was another minute or two before Robin stopped in front of a plain gray door. It slid open with a soft, metallic swoosh and Trigger was ushered gently but insistently inside.

It was simply furnished, a bookcase on one wall and a punching bag hanging in the corner. One wall was taken up almost entirely by a glass window facing away from the city, staring endlessly out over the tranquil ocean. Trigger took this all in from the doorway, blinking uncomprehendingly. "A...room?"

Starfire shook her head, her long hair frisking back and forth as her face began to glow in delight. "It is not just a room! It is _your_ room!"

"My room," Trigger repeated dumbly.

"We figured you could use a place to stay that wasn't a hospital, or somewhere out on the streets," Robin said with a grin, touching Trigger's shoulder briefly. "If—if you want it, that is."

Trigger barely heard him as he walked slowly into the room, pausing at the bed. He pressed lightly on the mattress; it was much, much softer and thicker than the one in the hospital. "I...I get a bed?"

"You didn't think that we'd make you sleep on the roof, did you?" Cyborg asked.

"I've just...I've never had a bed before," Trigger admitted, feeling his face grow hot.

"What did you sleep on?" Starfire tilted her head, perplexed.

"The ground," Trigger told her. "...Where else?"

She didn't reply, just gazed at him with eyes shining with sympathy.

Trigger turned back to the rest of the Titans. "You'd really let me stay in here?"

Robin nodded with a patient smile. "Yes, really. Do you want to?"

Trigger felt his face begin to glow with a smile, a true and heartfelt smile. "I would love to."


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter Twenty-Seven: Who I Was and What I Became**

The sound of ocean waves was as soft and soothing as a lullaby as Trigger sat beside Leng's grave. It was marked only by a large flat stone, bearing a simple inscription that Trigger had carved: _Here lies Leng, a true friend._

"It's been nine days since you died," Trigger said, pulling his legs to his chest and resting his chin on his knees. "I keep expecting the Titans to throw me out, but weirdly enough, they seem to like me." He looked at the stone and imagined that Leng was sitting beside him, the sunlight flashing off his glasses as they both looked out at the sea. "It's still strange to have people want me around, you know? You're the only one that ever really did..." His eyes prickled and he stared hard at the waves until the sensation was gone. "I wish I'd been able to save you," Trigger murmured.

He could almost hear Leng's voice, full of barely suppressed laughter: _I guess you'll_ have _to keep yourself out of trouble now._

"Not likely," Trigger replied with the ghost of a grin. "I'm not backing down until Slade's head comes off his shoulders and his blood drips down my sword." He knew that Leng would have frowned to hear him say this, would have advised him that murder wasn't the answer, and Trigger would have argued right back with him, protesting the case of vengeance. They would have gone back and forth until Leng would give up, throwing his hands in the air in exasperation. Trigger would have asked whether Leng thought he should have become a lawyer.

Tears were sliding silently down his cheeks before he realized it, and he wiped them away on the back of his wrist. He missed Leng terribly, still blamed himself entirely for his death.

"It'll take a long time to heal," came a voice behind him.

Trigger didn't move. "It's rude to sneak up on people," he answered tonelessly.

"We've been looking everywhere for you," Raven replied, folding her legs into a sitting position though her body remained floating a few inches above the ground. "What are you doing out here?"

"Talking with Leng," Trigger replied. "It's still...it's hard to believe I won't see him again."

Raven nodded sagely. "Grief hurts," she responded, her voice surprisingly gentle. Trigger looked at her, turquoise eyes locking onto purple. "Sometimes it feels like you're burning alive and the next second it feels like you're drowning."

"And sometimes it's just the emotional equivalent of watching paint dry," Trigger added. "Why did you want to find me?"

"The team and I have something to ask you," Raven said, standing. "Come on." She turned on her heel and walked back toward Titans' Tower, leaving no room for argument.

Trigger touched Leng's headstone in a silent farewell and stood stiffly, following her. Their footsteps formed a soft, steady beat that underscored the melody of the waves as they hissed across the rocky sand of the little island that the Tower stood on.

"Any word on Slade?" Trigger asked hopefully.

"If there was, we'd all be out looking for him," Raven answered, her voice returning to its normal emotionless tones. "And like Robin promised you, you would be the first to know." She glanced over her shoulder and, had Trigger not been so certain that she had the emotional capacity of a lump of plastic, he would have sworn that he saw a glimmer of humor in her large purple eyes.

The rest of the Titans were waiting in their living room, standing in a half-circle around the couch.

"We were beginning to think that you'd run out on us," Beast Boy called with a grin.

"You could have just transformed into a dog and tracked me down," Trigger retorted. The shapeshifter's smile broadened.

"Sit," Robin invited.

"I think I'll stand," Trigger said.

Cyborg loomed toward him. "Sit, my dude."

Trigger sat.

"We've been thinking over the last few days," Robin started, gesturing to himself and the rest of the team members, "and we've come to a conclusion."

"A world record, given how long it takes you to decide on what to watch," Trigger replied, his mouth quirking.

Starfire giggled.

Robin's mouth tightened as he tried not to smile. "The _point,_ Trigger, is that we've reached a decision that we want you to hear."

Trigger frowned. "How can I give you an answer if I don't know what the situation is?"

"We think you do," Cyborg said. He grinned.

"I think I don't," Trigger responded.

"We want you to be part of the team," Robin said.

Trigger felt like he had been hit in the face with a pole. "You...what?" His voice came out as nothing more than a whisper. "You want...me?"

All five of them—Robin, Raven, Cyborg, Starfire, and even Beast Boy—nodded firmly.

Trigger could think of nothing to say but "...Why?" He clamped his jaws together to keep himself from falling back into his usual pattern of snark and sarcasm: this was a dream, and this was a good one—he didn't want it to sour and end just yet.

"Why not?" To his astonishment, it was Beast Boy who spoke. "You're determined, you're strong, you fight for what you believe in, and hell, you're our friend."

"I put a _knife_ in your _back_ ," Trigger said bluntly.

"Yeah, and all that's left of it is a scar," Beast Boy replied. "We've all got scars, dude; it's just a matter of how we choose to look at them. Besides," he said, dropping his voice and leaning in closer, "ladies _love_ a guy with battle scars!"

Trigger gave a startled laugh.

Robin reached out a hand. "This is yours if you want it," he said. In his palm was a small, circular device with a _T_ set into the cover.

"One of your communicators..." Trigger could do nothing but stare at it.

"Well?" Starfire bobbed anxiously up and down in the air, her fists pressed under her pointed chin. "Will you become part of the team?"

Trigger watched as his own arm reached out and lifted the communicator out of Robin's hand. "I'd be honored to," he said.

Starfire gave a squeal of joy and flung her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly before letting him go and flying a celebratory loop-the-loop.

"That's settled, then," Robin grinned, clapping Trigger on the shoulder. "Welcome to the team."

"But you might want to think about changing that uniform," Cyborg said, eyeing the brown and gray suit that Trigger wore. "Slade gave that to you..."

There was a moment of tense silence before Trigger lifted his head and looked Cyborg in the eyes. "I'm keeping it," he said firmly.

"Why?" Raven asked curiously.

"Because," Trigger said, grinning broadly and looking around at the five beautiful faces of the Titans, of his friends, of his teammates. "It's a mark of who I was and what I became."

 **THE END**

 _Author's note: So ends Trigger's story. I want to thank each and every person who read this, and for the wonderful reviews that all of you have left me. I hope you had as much fun reading as I did writing. So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you so much._

 _All my love,_

 _UndiscoveredSpecies_


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